Captain Joseph McConnell began his military career during World War II as a navigator of a B-24 Liberator with the 448th Bombardment Group of the 8th Air Force. By 1948, he earned his pilot's wings and flew the F-80 Shooting Star in Alaska. By 1952, during the Korean War, he was sent to George Air Force Base in Victorville, where he learned to fly the F-86 fighter jet. He joined the 39th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing in Suwon AB, Korea, and over a 125-day period in 1953 he destroyed sixteen MiG-15 enemy aircraft, earning the title of Triple Jet Ace. Returning to the United States, he received a hero's welcome, including a luncheon with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and in his adopted hometown of Apple Valley he was honored with a parade on June 6, 1953, that stretched from Victorville to Apple Valley. Friends and neighbors then financed and built the Appreciation House for Captain McConnell, his wife Pearl ("Butch"), and their children Patricia, Kathleen, and Chris, completing it in a world-record 45 hours and 15 minutes. His next assignment at George Air Force Base was as an instructor pilot with the 479th Fighter-Bomber Wing, followed by service as a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base near Palmdale. In August 1954, while testing the F-86H, a new version of the plane he had flown in Korea that was designed as both a fighter and a ground attack plane, control malfunctions forced him to eject, and he died from injuries sustained in the ejection.