A few months back, I wrote of hidden stories in used books [blogger]. I came across another interesting one a couple days ago, as part of my bid to shore up my Squadron Signal book collection. I purchased a bundle of used aircraft books at eBay and in reviewing the copies, I saw a couple had an address label in the inside front cover.
The label identified CAPT Bob Munsey and LCDR Rosemary Munsey, likely the former owners of the book. I was curious about the history this hinted at, and did a little research. I was not fully prepared for the journey this search would take me on.
It all starts well enough. The ranks listed by the names on the label indicate they were both in the US Navy. This appears to be true: there are publicly available obituaries for both.
Charles Robert Munsey Jr. [funeralsolutions.net] served twenty-nine years in the US Navy. He attended the United States Naval Academy and spent time on a destroyer and several carriers. Some posts on his tribute page point to his service as an aviation maintenance officer. He retired while working at the Pentagon with the rank of Captain. He was involved in church activities and, no surprise given his ownership of some Squadron Signal books, modeling and aircraft restoration. One of his sons, Bill Munsey, has a video clip from a news piece on Bob [YouTube] taking a ride on a restored Ford tri-motor.
Without concrete evidence or testimonial, one must assume Munsey met his wife in the navy. Rosemary [scholar.lib.vt.edu] appears to have been quite accomplished and reaching the rank of Lieutenant Commander back in the eighties, when women didn't have the same presence, mobility, and support they have in the military now is quite a feat. Like Munsey, Rosemary worked in aviation maintenance at various posts around the nation.
Rosemary Munsey passed away in 1996 from breast cancer. Charles Robert Munsey Jr. passed away in 2023. You can fill in one blank and figure the aviation books I picked up in 2024 probably ultimately came from Munsey's estate sale.
Then, looking over the posts in the Robert Munsey obituary page, some ugliness materializes. A person claiming to be his niece points to Munsey's record as a sex offender. And this too appears to be true. Munsey was convicted in 1999 in Virginia and after moving to Florida was active in the Florida Action Committee, an organization with the goal of advocating for reasonable sex offender laws.
This discovery saddened me because minus the criminal past, Munsey would have absolutely been the kind of person I would have enjoyed chatting with. His military service and love for aviation are things I respect.
Let's take this as an opportunity to learn. Browsing a few more of the articles about Munsey, I learn there's a community of sex offenders that have paid their debts but now cannot integrate fully into society. There is an understandable stigma around them and I too would give pause to an association. And yet, isn't this using too broad a brush without investigating the situations in more detail? Some of the posts on Munsey's FAC memorial page tell of an offender that was misled into the crime due to falsified records on a person's age. Another laments of the loneliness and sense of abandonment felt and the challenges of trying to find a job. Offenders in any crime should pay, no question, but after that, what do you do to ensure they have a sustainable path to being productive members of society?
I haven't named any other parties except for those on the address label from the book out of respect for the family. All of this is public if you want to see it for yourself. And my condolences to all involved parties.
From buying and selling old airplane books to pondering crime and punishment. What an exercise for a Sunday morning!
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