Rank and Flying

-->

The main job an officer had in the squadron was to be a pilot or RIO. Pilots were judged on their competency in the air, whether they were ‘a good stick’. This ranking went on a scale from “a damn fine stick’ to ‘unsafe at any speed’.

Lieutenants, once they earned their wings, needed to fly often to build up competence, confidence, and situational awareness. Good RIOs helped with the training after the training command sent the young 'uns to an operational squadron and the best RIOs helped keep them alive in bad situations. With a nugget, also known as an FNG--Fucking New Guy, a RIO had to keep an eye out for trouble on the horizon of the lieutenant's experience and a hand ready to command eject. Generally, lieutenants knew less than they thought they did and were an exemplar of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. A strong squadron scheduled flights to give the lieutenants the experience they needed everyday. When not flying, FNGs were good for weekend duty and holiday duty, voting officer, drug and alcohol officer, mailroom duty, mess officer, dues collection--anything that had little or no effect on actual flying operations.

With luck, lieutenants became captains. Captains flew. The backbone of the operational squadron, the good ones helped both ends: training the lieutenants and getting work done for the OpsO, XO and Commanding Officer. But they had no grey hair, no responsibilities to worry about except to become the best damn pilots in the free world and beyond. Every fighter pilot wanted to stay a captain forever.

Eventually captains either left the Corps or were promoted to major. Majors in the squadron were the OpsO who scheduled flight, the XO who took care of the admin and kept the CO happy, and the Maintenance Officer who made sure the planes all took off each day. Responsibility was their life. Once in awhile they got in some flighttime, at least enough to maintain flight status and flight pay, but the dark specter of Life After Flying hulked over their lives as shit hot pilots.

The CO was a Lieutenant Colonel. Only one per squadron. Being a CO of a fighter squadron in the Marine Corps was an honor, a privilege, and life-changing. The good ones maintained ties throughout their lives to those who served willingly under them and at their wing.

But not all get there.

In the Air Force, aviators fly. Someone else does all the other jobs in a squadron. The Marine Corps, with a smaller force and budget to draw on, needs all Marines to do their duty: to run the 3 mile PFT; to know how to carry a rifle, to load, shoot and clean it; to serve with the grunts on occasion and learn what the Marines are doing on the ground when they need fire support.

Aviators fly, but good Marines do more than that. Good Marines support the whole mission, the operation of the squadron, the training of the lieutenants and stepping up to the responsibility of the rank of major and above. A Marine who never serves a ground tour, never does a favor for his Monitor (the guy in a cubicle in the Pentagon who has to fill all the billets), that guy--he thinks he's Peter Pan, but he's just a lost boy. 

I knew some of those lost boys. Some never married, never should have. A few people I knew loved the flyboys and married them. Usually those boys stayed in NeverNeverLand, while the spouse took care of the real world.

My favorite people knew that Tink's fairy dust wouldn't last forever and they accepted grounding in reality. Just as a squadron needs real Marines, so we need men and women who get married, have children and teach them right from wrong; people who do their best to do what's right.

I know my guy misses the rush of pushing the envelope, a cat launch off a pitching deck, a perfect ACM against a worthy opponent. But I love him for everything he was, has been since his last flight in a Hornet, and still is today.

When were you last captain of your soul?

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Fighter Pilot Rule for Life: Lowkey Information

The first plane my guy flew was a T-34 propeller trainer, the T-2 was his first jet, then the T-2B, a twin engine T-2 jet, the TF-9 jet trainer, and finally in VMFA-333, he flew the Phantom F-4. All of the planes were double-seaters with an instructor or a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the backseat ready to tell him when he was doing it wrong. It served a dual purpose to have dual seats. The backseaters kept the valuable plane from terminal damage and also kept the young, brash, and maybe-not-yet-up-to-snuff pilot from terminal damage. A lot of time and money had been invested in both aircraft and aviator.

If a pilot had figured out a way to auger into the ground or lost his S/A or departed from controlled flight, a RIO or instructor would verbally help him get his act together. The best RIOs and instructors kept cool in the lightning storm. The idea wasn't to destroy the young pilot's confidence but to train him up to be a calm, steely-eyed gunslinger with wings and sidewinder missiles. Even after leaving the training command there were many times an extra set of eyes or another brain proved valuable. When worse went to worst, the RIO also had a command-eject capability.

And then in 1983, the new latest fighter arrived at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station: the F/A-18 Hornet, a single-seat, high-tech aircraft that featured computerized instrument panels, nine on-board computers (more now!), and television screens to aid in bombing run accuracy. The training squadrons had two-seat planes, but once finished with the flight simulator training and the instructors, no RIO flew as a backseat driver or failsafe guy.

McDonnell Douglas had a solution. They asked a secretary to record some standard warning messages in a calm, female voice. (Millions of dollars went into research to determine that a female voice was easier to hear in a stressful situation) The F/A-18 Hornet voice warning system was called by the aviators Bitchin’ Betty. In the worst of circumstances, her voice is composed and measured: “Left engine fire. Left engine fire” or “Bingo Fuel. Bingo Fuel.”

Here's what I've been wondering: why does my beloved other ignore my voice in disasters? Could it be that jumping up and down screaming and using tons of !!!! does not make my point better?

So I've been practicing. I keep my voice low and slow. "Honey, you are about to turn left on a red light and I do not think that tractor-trailer sees you," and "You might want to bring your wallet that is on the bedside table before we leave with our luggage to catch a plane to Timbuktu," and "Darling, the ladder you are climbing to put lights on the second story of our house has not been latched properly and is about to collapse."

Not my fault if he does not hear my reasonable warnings. Not my fault, but in a marriage we both suffer the consequences.

Military Writer's Society of America's Book Discussion Forum March 23-25

Please join us for the Military Writer's Society of America's first book discussion forum running March 23-25 on the MWSA site. I am honored that the topic will be my memoir, WING WIFE: HOW TO BE MARRIED TO A MARINE FIGHTER PILOT. Joyce Faulkner, President of MWSA will be the moderator.

I encourage everyone to participate, even if you haven't read WING WIFE, especially if you have written, are in the process of writing, or are thinking about writing a memoir. We'd love the perspective of military types--Marines and other services--aviators and/or their spouses. Everyone's comments will be useful.

The idea is to talk about craft and to talk about the military experience.

Writing Techniques for Memoirs Link: http://www.mwsadispatches.com/node/840

WING WIFE Content and Message Link: http://www.mwsadispatches.com/node/841 


If you are not a member and want to comment on a thread, write Joyce at MWSAPresident@gmail.com and ask to be added to the site.

Lost Friends

Captain Carroll LeFon USN (retired) RIP

It's not a penny found on the street

Scuffed, darkened and pocketed.

It requires penny after penny after penny

Of time and thought and laughter

Accumulated in a Mason jar in the kitchen sunshine.

I carried the jar

Toward the maple table to count moments,

To plan a shared splurge when the phone rang.

I answered

And the jar fell to the tile shattering

Into pennies rolling, clattering, circling,

Glass shards everywhere.

I scooped them into piles.

Blood dripped from my hands

To stone squares, on clear glass running red,

On piled and scattered pennies.

There's not a good way found

To lose a friend.
 

I never met him in person, yet we were friends. The first blog I followed when I started blogging, the blogger I stayed loyal to through the years. Wise words are like pennies collected on the street, as change, in drawers. In the end, we are richer for them.

Smart, a poet, a fighter pilot who loved his wife and family. I will miss him but there's joy in the words and photos and thoughts and friendships he nurtured on his blog Neptunus Lex. In the end I am richer for knowing him. We are all richer. 

January 2nd

Thirty-two years ago today I called my sister-in-law in Beaufort. We’d talked to her and my brother on Christmas Day but it was the New Year and we’d not touched base on the first. Six o-clock at night, but he was flying. Three hops that day. Kath said he’d call when he landed from the last. I remember Kath and I laughing about married life. I remember her talking about what a wonderful holiday season they’d had and Don fishing for crabs off the pier with Tim, their eight year old. She mentioned his new boat, a Boston Whaler. Andy immediately wanted to talk to him about it. I had to tell my other half to stop trying to grab the phone because Don wasn’t there to talk to.

Don would never be there to talk to again--except in my head.

Some days I feel his loss as a little ache, a tiny “oh I wish he were here” or a “things would be different if...” This week, a student at Santa Barbara contacted me. He’s working to digitize all the information to locate veterans’ graves. He wants to write a blogpost for my blog. I wrote back yes.

Then I put in my brother’s name and San Diego, California. And found his grave marker.

http://www.locategrave.org/l/358315/Jones

www.locategrave.org

A wave of grief and what ifs and loneliness and loss overwhelmed me.

He’s not there, in body or in spirit. Midair collisions at night over the water are not so kind to return an aviator for burial.

There is no timeline for grief. No right or wrong way to grieve. Hold your loved ones close when you can.

Today I am sad.

Aviation Brief XVIII: Formal Corps Traditions Part 1

Most formal occasions in the aviation community, such as the Marine Corps Ball, had wives and girlfriends present--in recognition of the women’s civilizing effect on flyboys. Women also enjoyed dressing up more than the men. Formal clothes for women were slinky and comfortable, once they removed the killer heels. Formal wear for the aviator was stiff, starched, and tight on the collar--the complete opposite of a flight suit. Short of taking off the jacket and unbuttoning the collar, no relief was to be found from the constriction. No relief from the restriction of socializing with generals and colonels, either.

Once in awhile, Corps tradition presented a formal occasion with no women. At Basic School, Mess Night for each class became an institution. Beforehand, company XOs admonished new lieutenants about such taboos as loosening a tight collar or imbibing to the point of passing out at the dinner table. Several minutes of the lecture explained the requirement for bladder control and the planning needed to accomplish it. They cautioned that the bugle call "last call for the head" just prior to marching into dinner might be the most important musical accompaniment of the night. The requirement to remain at the table once dinner had begun was absolute.

At Mess Night, the band played and Marine officers marched in adhering rigidly to custom and tradition. They ate and drank their way through a multi-course dinner. Stewards filled wine glasses when appropriate, and the serving and removal of courses evolved with the panache of the Sunset Parade at 8th and I. Cigars appeared and the President of the Mess lit the smoking lamp. With the last toast, "to the Corps!" all felt proud to be a Marine. Mess Night reached its climax at the bar: lieutenants, captains, majors and colonels holding snifters of brandy. An evening to remember. (To Be Continued...)

The Marine Corps Birthday Ball was the one night my guy would consent to dance on a dance floor with other people around. Now the horizontal rhumba--he was and is passionate about, but that is in private and usually on a bed. Thank goodness we’re in sync about that. Dance isn’t my favorite either. I have a decided lack of rhythm or maybe it’s just that I can’t dance as if nobody’s watching. I can’t say I’m all that comfortable following his lead. Remember, we are still having the conversation about who is the CO and who is the XO in our marriage.

The Marine Corps taught me a lot about tradition and its importance. An institution with traditions shows itself respect. When all else goes to shit--the traditions told me what to do, when to stand, when to toast, how to celebrate births, how to help in times of trouble, when to go to a house that grieved (--as soon as possible and as often as possible). No man left behind is a Marine tradition. No spouse left by themselves.

Tradition is important to show respect to a marriage and a family. Andy and I always go away overnight at least one night for our anniversary. Sometimes it was a night at the Motel 6--those were lean years--but we still got a chance to look in each others' eyes and remember why we fell in love in the first place. Holiday traditions are a basis of strength into the future for the children. Even now when my children are grown up and far away, they know at my house the tree will be up, the cookies will be baked, there will be turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, homemade butterhorn rolls and peas. I’ll have the creche on the mantel, the stockings hung from silver snowflakes on the stairs, and a wreath on the door.

I wonder if the Corps traditions are still holding firm today. So many young men and women have given all to their country. So many families left bereaved. I need to try harder to be there for them. Do you have suggestions?

Aviator Brief XIII: Fear and the Aviator

Aviators avoided even thinking about fear. Belief in invulnerability was essential to performance in situations where weak dick pilots and the lesser folks of the universe crashed and burned. Pilots trained to make automatic the choices keeping them in controlled flight. RIOs trained to be an extra set of eyes and ears, and brain for their pilots who held the control stick but might not have total SA--situational awareness. 

Sometimes events happened so far out of normal that fear tapped a skeletal finger on even the bravest aviator’s shoulder. On a hop--out near San Clemente Island--Doug Farmer, a RIO in VMFA 531, hadn’t been able to keep his front-seater from getting disoriented in the clouds and departing controlled flight, so they both had to eject. 

Doug soon floated alone in his little survival raft on a glassy sea off the California coast, his pilot nowhere to be seen. Through the tendrils of fog and mist, he noticed the waters roiling quite close to his raft. Something huge and dark appeared out of the depths and rapidly approached the surface. A black conning tower of a submarine erupted out of the ocean next to him, rocking him with the wash. Rising higher and higher, thirty feet out of the water, it loomed very, very dark and very, very big--with no markings on it to indicate its national affiliation. 

Doug Farmer had a lemur. 

Lemurs typically happened when a pilot got thumped--one fighter came underneath the second plane, then swooped up right before the victim’s radome--the front pointy end of a fighter. The jetwash of the first aircraft thrashed the victim’s plane, resulting in a physical thump. Getting thumped sent a cold shot of piss to the heart.

It wasn’t another pilot fucking with him, but in this confrontation with a submarine, Doug Farmer’s heart stuttered.

Men came out on the deck, but didn’t speak. They threw him a line and waved him toward the boat.
At the time, high tension existed between the Soviets and the United States, with the Soviets known to patrol the waters off California. Why wouldn’t the crew talk to him? The only explanation--they spoke Russian and he would soon be spending years in a Siberian gulag. 

Fear sloshed in his raft. He did not take the line. He did not paddle closer. He did not say anything either. Name, Rank, Serial Number, he reminded himself. 

Détente.

Whoop. Whoop. Whoop. Coming closer.

A helo appeared overhead, US squadron markings clearly painted on its sides and belly. Rescue divers jumped into the water, waving at the sub crew before helping winch Farmer aboard the copter for a ride back to terra firma, terra cognita, California. The sub disappeared again below the waters of the Pacific.

Turned out the sub was a boomer--our nuclear super-secret-stay-underwater-for-two months-at-time-and-never-let-anyone-know-where-you-are-so-you-can-launch-missiles-at-the-enemy submarine. But the call had gone out ‘Plane Down’ and they’d been very close to where Doug’s locator beacon had been pinging. The captain of the sub broke protocol just to surface. Obligated to check in case he needed medical attention, they weren’t going to talk to him. Not even to assure him they weren’t bogeys.

Fear turned into a great story at the O-Club. Looking good at the field.

        Most of the time my life as a mother consisted of making sure  my kids were alive at the end of the day (thank you Erma Bombeck), and that they had been fed, clothed, their homework done. On a good day all had some hugs and love yous thrown into the mix.

        My life as an aviator’s wife meant moving a lot,  leaving old friends, getting to know new people. I also tried to make sure home was a welcome haven from the stress and demands of the job.

      The hardest part of my life has been controlling fear.

        Fear as a mother meant watching the girls try out new things, go to houses of people I barely knew, learn to drive and then drive off in the car at night. I’ll never forget being called by the cops at night. My fourteen and sixteen year olds had met some boys at a park (prearranged). The boys had beer, the neighbors called the police. My daughters tried to run away. The worse part? My sixteen year old had guns in holsters as she ran! Disneyland Frontierland toy guns--but in the dark as they ran I am still so grateful the police did not feel threatened and shoot.

       The worst part about fear is that it did me no good. My fear came after everything turned out all right--or didn’t. Then it was too late.

         Fear as an aviator’s wife stalked me. Every time he flew, I worried. We had lost friends in “training mishaps” where wings fell off, clouds turned to rocks and water met sky. My brother’s F-4 tried to fit into the same piece of sky as another F-4.

        My husband still flew--even transitioned to F/A 18s. I couldn’t, wouldn’t let my fear keep him or my children from trying their wings.

Aviator Brief XII: Yen Roll

One O-Club competition, known as the Yen Roll, began on base while stationed overseas--in Japan. Usually later in a drunken evening than earlier, someone collected the yen. Typically, they anteed up 3000 to 5000 yen per aviator, about 10 to 15 dollars. Starting with a number--often the squadron number--say 232, the aviators took turns rolling five dice. Each ace rolled subtracted from the original number. 

The aviator who rolled the last ace, grabbed the money and hai-yakued to change out of his flight suit and make for the bars and girls in the ville. The lucky aviator had to spend the yen as fast as he could in places unlikely to be discovered--if found by any squadron-mate or -mates, he had to split the remaining funds. $300 US could buy a real good time in Japan in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Half that, half as good a time. Find the bogey and shoot it down was a time-honored tradition in air-to-air combat. Not surprising the fly boys figured a way to play it on the ground.

The games aviators play and the games wives play have very different objectives. Find the bogey. I've had bogeys in my life: problems presented by marriage, children, other women--other wives. Chasing after a problem to destroy it while hoping to get rewarded not only didn't work, it was counter-productive. Marriage, family, wives: we were all in it together and needed support, not competition. Bless all the wives and girlfriends who supported me on my run through life.

By the way, there are many games I enjoy playing with my husband, but not to shoot him down. I need him flying high and feeling lucky. Then we both get lucky.

Aviator Brief IX: Compromising Positions

Pilots and RIOs in the Phantoms needed each other. Each had their tasks to accomplish. Each watched out for the bogey and other bad things heading their way. Pilots have saved RIO’s lives with spiffy flying. Backseaters have saved their pilots’ asses by seeing what they couldn’t, or command-ejecting both when the front-seater wanted to save his reputation and/or the plane more than his life. But RIOs all have a story of a pilot determined to fuck it all up.

Mike Fagan was a RF-4 backseater flying with his CO as pilot. They climbed in formation from Navy Dallas, Love Field, under IFR--Instrument Flight Rules--in big thick thunderstorm clouds. Formation flying in thunderstorms is difficult, so hard to do even the best pilots ‘squeeze the plastic’--whiten their knuckles around the plastic control stick. In IFR formation flying, one plane takes the lead, flying instruments only. The wingman has to keep in parade position--slightly back off the wing of the lead plane while keeping it in sight. The planes were buffeted about, in and out of thick clouds. The CO drifted a little too far from the lead plane, and lost sight.

At that point, the smart thing to do would be to take a 45-degree turn away, radio call, “Lost sight,” hold the heading and rejoin above the cloud cover. Instead, the CO tried a shadow rejoin--joining up on a shadow he thought might be the other airplane in the clouds--a definite no-no by all formation flying wisdom. He collided with and damaged the stabilator on the tail of the lead aircraft. The contact, not-so-slight, disintegrated their own radome--the fiberglass nose of the plane covering the radar--that was sucked into the jet intake, FODing their own engine--FOD, Foreign Object Damage--very bad for turning turbine blades.

A pilot with good judgment would shut down the affected engine to avoid a fire and evaluate if the plane was flyable. If it wasn’t, then a smart pilot would slow down the plane for a safer ejection. A sharp pilot knew to yell, “Eject! Eject! Eject!” because the RIO is the first to leave the plane via ejection. By the time the third “Eject!” left the pilot’s lips, the canopy would have been jettisoned and the RIO would be up the rails, well warned and in a safe position for sudden departure from his flying machine.

None of that happened. Mike Fagan, the backseater, knew he had a good fifteen minutes after take-off before he had any necessary task to perform. So he brought out his flight maps for later, kicked back mentally, and had just opened up the latest Hustler magazine to the centerfold spread when he heard a thump, followed shortly by a cough. He didn’t know it was the sound of shit hitting the fan--the radome parts hitting the blades of the turbine and the subsequent engine deceleration. He didn’t know and he had no time to think about it.

Within half a second, and without warning from his pilot, the canopy blasted into the jet stream, maps and magazines sucked out in the vortex. Immediately, he was exposed to a driving thunderstorm with no mask or visor--he had been looking at the pictures, fergodsake!

A half second later the seat gun exploded him up the rails and out into blinding rain, cracking lightning, and hailstones.

The plane landed in an empty schoolyard--thank the good Lord for Sundays. The wheel chocks punched three feet deep in a driveway. Mike Fagan and the pilot landed on a golf course, an empty golf course because of the sheets of rain, wind, and lightning flashes. Mike never recovered his Hustler magazine, though his sense of humor did help him recover his temper--eventually.

All of us need our backseaters, the people in our lives who are another pair of eyes. All of us suffer when we take them for granted or don’t keep them in the loop.

We have to be the backseaters for our loved ones too. “I’ve got your back” what a great way to say I love you. Being the backseater means not always being in control. Behaving when we are left back home. Staying in touch.

My husband had an unaccompanied year-long tour to Okinawa when my oldest was 18 months old. Three weeks after he left, I realized I was pregnant with our second. I hated having him gone. I struggled with my high energy toddler during the not-so-good days of pregnancy and then had problems with the pregnancy and went on bed rest for the last two months. My mother and all her advice came to stay with us. Bless her for her help and bless her heart I wished she’d kept her opinions to herself.

My middle daughter arrived in October. My dad called Andy and told him about his baby girl. I sent him a picture in December--yes, two months later. My husband met her when she was two and a half months old, on his return home from his tour of duty.

It took me a year and a half to forgive him for having been gone. Does that make sense? No. He didn’t want to be gone; he wanted to be with us. I’m ashamed of my young self. Sorry, honey. I love you.

Aviator Brief II: Call Signs

Bullet--Donald S. Jones USMC

Call signs--military nicknames used in air-to-air combat to avoid revealing an aviator’s identity to the enemy--served within the world of friendlies to identify members of the fraternity of airmen. Pilots always had a moniker, and RIOs--Radar Intercept Officers who navigated and worked the radios but didn’t have a control stick to fly the airplane, poor bastards--often earned a name other than their own. Easily recognized were the self-bestowed call signs of pilots versus those invented out of the fruitful and irreverent brain of a fellow flyer. If the call sign sounded too normal or too cool, the pilot had probably given it to himself.

An ideal name like Burner incorporated an aviation term so those not in the know would think its genesis to be from afterburner--a part of a jet airplane that when lit makes the plane very loud and very fast. The way the name game is played, he could be very slow, very quiet, or have a tendency to pass gas with explosive consequences. Burner wasn’t telling. The conical shape of Bullet’s head in the cockpit melded into his shoulders, mimicking the live ammo F-4 Phantoms carried. Was he named for that or for taking aim at a target (usually a member of the group he called ‘the idiots of the world’) and shooting it down?

Pipperburn’s call sign referred to the pipper being locked on, but not fired--burning a hole in the opponent. The pipper--predicted impact point, PIP--was the location at which a ballistic projectile--e.g. bomb, missile, bullet--was expected to strike if fired. Pipperburn’s youth, inexperience, and tendency to consume copious amounts of alcoholic beverages all precluded him from ever actually firing on any target: a bogey--any adversarial airplane--or a female.

A Musing:

Idiots of the world. We’ve all met them. I try to avoid them, and when I can’t, I find excuses for them. I’ve been an idiot more than I’d like. The world is a tough place, why make it harder?

Writing is a tough job--you know: sit around in pajamas all day with a lap top in front of me. Eat when I want. Sleep if I want. Sometimes tap words on to the page in front of me (or is it a screen?). My writing is tough because I have to persevere putting thoughts to page in a systematic and still creative way. No deadlines in these first manuscripts, only deadlines I set for myself.

The problem? The tough stuff? Not sounding like an idiot of the world in the words I put down. My self editor is a tough boss.