You could never get all of us together long enough for a picture such as yours. Too many drunks and ne'er-do-wells in the squadron.
The picture was taken just out of port from Cubi to the line…so no flying, and of course, missing movement would have been a big bad, so we were all there. (Although some had to be "propped-up" for the photo-shoot, and some may even have used "cardboard facsimile cutouts" of themselves as "stand-ins" for themselves, while they slept it off in their racks
).
Who are the beard-O's ... your A/I's ???
No, the full beards were all aircrew. (Our AI was too young to grow a beard!) The ones with full beards are 2 RIO's, and one pilot. (The one RIO was unfortunately killed some years later in an F-14 flat spin; the other bearded RIO now runs his own software company, and wrote a book (
Tail-End Charlie) about that cruise; and the bearded pilot is now a retired airline pilot.)
...
