I was sent this article by my recruiter. Rick Riley is a writer for sports illustrated, and I thought it was pretty cool/inspirational. Enjoy...
> This story is being told by a Mr. Reilly of Sports Illustrated...
>
> This message is for America's most famous athletes;
>
> Someday you may be invited to fly in the backseat of one of your
> country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have--
> John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few.
>
> If you get this opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest
> sincerity... Move to Guam. Change your name. Fake your own
> death. What ever you do, do NOT go. I know.
>
> The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was
> pumped. I was TOAST. I should have known when they told me my
> pilot would be Chip (Biff) King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval
> Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. Whatever your thinking a
> Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about
> six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, a finger-
> crippling handshake. He would be the kind of man who wrestles
> dyspeptic alligators in his leisure. If you see this man, run
> the other way fast.
>
> Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years
> the voice of NASA missions. ("T-minus 15 seconds and
> counting...." Remember?) Chip would charge the neighborhood kids
> a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack would wake up from naps
> surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say, "We have a
> liftoff".
>
> Biff was to fly me in an F-14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful
> $60 million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight... not
> unlike Colin Montgomerie. I was worried about getting airsick,
> so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was anything
> special I should eat the next morning. "Bananas," he said. "For
> the potassium?" I asked. "No", Biff said, "because they taste
> about the same coming up as they do going down"
>
> The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with
> my name sewn over the left breast. (No call-sign like Crash or
> Sticky or Leadfoot- but still very cool). I carried my helmet in
> the crook of my arm as Biff had instructed me to do. If I ever
> in my life had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, that moment was
> it.
>
> A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then
> fastened me into my ejection seat, which when employed, would
> "egress" me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be
> immediately knocked unconscious.
>
> Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight the canopy
> closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up. In
> minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and
> then canopy-rolled over another F-14.
>
> Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the
> ride lasted 80 minutes. It was like being on a roller coaster at
> Six Flags Over Hell... Only without rails. We did barrel rolls,
> loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and dived again,
> sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We
> chased another F-14, and it chased us. We broke the speed of
> sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did
> 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5, which is
> to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against
> me, thereby approximating life as Mrs. Colin Montgomerie.
>
> And I egressed the bananas. I egressed the pizza from the night
> before. And the lunch before that. I egressed a box of Milk
> Duds from the sixth grade. I made Linda Blair look polite.
> Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that did not even want
> to be egressed. I went through not one airsick bag, but two.
> Biff said I passed out. Twice. I was coated in sweat. At one
> point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a
> mock bombing run and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla
> and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first
> person in history to throw down.
>
> I used to know cool. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass,
> or Norman making a five-iron bite. But now I really know cool.
> Cool is guys like Biff. Men with cast-iron stomachs and Freon
> nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for Derek Jeter's black
> book, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less a year than
> a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.
>
> A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He
> said he and the rest of the fighter guys had a perfect call sign
> for me. Said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit. What
> is it? I asked. "Two Bags."
>
> Don't you dare tell Nicole.
> This story is being told by a Mr. Reilly of Sports Illustrated...
>
> This message is for America's most famous athletes;
>
> Someday you may be invited to fly in the backseat of one of your
> country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have--
> John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few.
>
> If you get this opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest
> sincerity... Move to Guam. Change your name. Fake your own
> death. What ever you do, do NOT go. I know.
>
> The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was
> pumped. I was TOAST. I should have known when they told me my
> pilot would be Chip (Biff) King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval
> Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. Whatever your thinking a
> Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about
> six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, a finger-
> crippling handshake. He would be the kind of man who wrestles
> dyspeptic alligators in his leisure. If you see this man, run
> the other way fast.
>
> Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years
> the voice of NASA missions. ("T-minus 15 seconds and
> counting...." Remember?) Chip would charge the neighborhood kids
> a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack would wake up from naps
> surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say, "We have a
> liftoff".
>
> Biff was to fly me in an F-14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful
> $60 million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight... not
> unlike Colin Montgomerie. I was worried about getting airsick,
> so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was anything
> special I should eat the next morning. "Bananas," he said. "For
> the potassium?" I asked. "No", Biff said, "because they taste
> about the same coming up as they do going down"
>
> The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with
> my name sewn over the left breast. (No call-sign like Crash or
> Sticky or Leadfoot- but still very cool). I carried my helmet in
> the crook of my arm as Biff had instructed me to do. If I ever
> in my life had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, that moment was
> it.
>
> A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then
> fastened me into my ejection seat, which when employed, would
> "egress" me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be
> immediately knocked unconscious.
>
> Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight the canopy
> closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up. In
> minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and
> then canopy-rolled over another F-14.
>
> Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the
> ride lasted 80 minutes. It was like being on a roller coaster at
> Six Flags Over Hell... Only without rails. We did barrel rolls,
> loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and dived again,
> sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We
> chased another F-14, and it chased us. We broke the speed of
> sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did
> 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5, which is
> to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against
> me, thereby approximating life as Mrs. Colin Montgomerie.
>
> And I egressed the bananas. I egressed the pizza from the night
> before. And the lunch before that. I egressed a box of Milk
> Duds from the sixth grade. I made Linda Blair look polite.
> Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that did not even want
> to be egressed. I went through not one airsick bag, but two.
> Biff said I passed out. Twice. I was coated in sweat. At one
> point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a
> mock bombing run and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla
> and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first
> person in history to throw down.
>
> I used to know cool. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass,
> or Norman making a five-iron bite. But now I really know cool.
> Cool is guys like Biff. Men with cast-iron stomachs and Freon
> nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for Derek Jeter's black
> book, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less a year than
> a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.
>
> A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He
> said he and the rest of the fighter guys had a perfect call sign
> for me. Said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit. What
> is it? I asked. "Two Bags."
>
> Don't you dare tell Nicole.