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Thank you Air Warriors Past, Present, and Future

navy8rdad

Active Member
Today as I read the news about the departure of CSG-8 and CAW-7 I am filled with immense pride as this deployment marks the culmination of ten years of almost daily ups and downs for the father of a recently minted naval aviator. Sometime back in 2004 our family was sitting at the dinner table discussing “things” when my son, a junior in high school at the time declared that he wanted to join the navy and become a helicopter pilot. His two brothers, one two years older and the other two years younger laughed, but his mother and I took him seriously and began to help him investigate what it would take to do that. In August of 2006, about a year and a half later, his mother and I, along with his brothers, were sitting in a hall at The Ohio State University while about a hundred or so young men and women were sworn in as US navy midshipman.

That is where it all began for us and that is when I discovered all of you, the SNAs, the flight instructors, the fleet guys and gals, the recruiters, the flight surgeons, department heads, and the retirees who helped me put and keep the whole process of becoming a US Navy officer and earning wings of gold in perspective. The purpose of this letter is to say thank you both individually and collectively to everyone who has contributed to Air Warriors for keeping me sane.

As a prior enlisted, 1973 through 1982 serving first as an “I” level electronics technician, one Westpac cruise aboard the Ranger and later as a NAMTRA instructor, leaving as an E-6, I knew a little about the navy but nothing about becoming an officer or a naval aviator. Early on I discovered this site and quickly became a chronic lurker. I have to be honest and say that I was probably too engaged and I know now that I did not give my son enough credit. I sweated every milestone he went up against during flight school worrying that he wouldn’t have the skills needed, until I learned here that for most those skills could be learned, good judgment and SA were another matter. There were of course THOSE days when for example he dropped the landing gear too early, no pink slip, just the walk of shame. But for me I worried, would this one be it? Would he have one bad day too many? I sweated his time at the FRS and then his HAC boards. Each time I would go to Air Warriors and find something to ease my anxiety, he is normal, he will be fine I would once again realize.

Air Warriors as a tranquilizer works for me (so does scotch, but that’s another story) but it has become much more than that. Air Warriors or more precisely the men and women who serve in US Navy and Marine Corps aviation are among the finest human beings on the planet. Your discipline, professionalism and intellect should be, and I suspect are, an inspiration to all who are willing to learn from you.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.


P.S. Now I’m sweating his FITREP…
 
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