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A handsome tribute.
My dad was a bit too old to step forward in WW II (he was born in 1906) but he was a commercial pilot and knew Asia as a flyer for China National Airline Company (owned by American Airlines at the time). He joined the AAF as a civilian pilot, flying C-46's over the Hump, supplying Nationalist Chinese, Brits and a few American troops who were fighting the Japanese in China. There were many civilian captains in this theater. Dad wore an officer's uniform with the CBI patch but no rank insignia.
After the war, he joined the Army again as a civilian and worked for the Japan Procurement Agency, buying stuff for the Army and Air force in Asia, mainly for the Korean conflict.
When I arrived as a little kid in Sagamihara and later, Yokohama, the country was still run more or less by the US Army and the State Department. MacArthur was gone but his influence was still quite evident and still is today.