Bong Recreation Area. It sounds like a joke, but isn't

[Model35mech]

And it probably has had significant MJ smoked there. The signs for Bong Recreation were a long standing amusement along the interstate in SE Wisconsin.

That place is an old old long abandoned airbase named after Richard Bong the highest scoring US air ace in WWII (47 kills iirc), and a Wisconsinite from "up" north. He flew a P-38 named Marge, his HS sweetheart with an enlarged poster of her fixed to the front of the plane. He married her.

Bong died before the war ended. Marge died in 2003, he didn't die in his plane. On its last flight, Bong's fighter was flown by another pilot, and lost over jungle. Bong himself, survived his combat missions, and became an early test pilot for American jet planes, and died doing that before WWII ended.

It now appears that his plane has been found after roughly 75 years

[Blue Owl]

1. There's also a Bong Bridge that connects the cities of Superior, WI and Duluth, MN

High above the water....

[central scrutinizer]

2. "Ace of Aces" came out in 1960

I read it as a teenager

[JohnnyRingo]

3. Richard Bong was the top American ace of WWII with 40 kills.

The war was winding down and they pulled him off duty to tour the US selling War Bonds. They didn't want him to screw it up by getting killed.
Nobody ever asks who the #2 ace was. It was Thomas McGuire, who served in the Pacific with Bong, also flying P-38s with 38 kills.

He died in combat early in 1945.

.
McGuire Air Base is named after him.