Acid Test

By lex, on October 10th, 2009

When I was a nobbut aviator, only freshly winged, I was assigned to the FA-18 training squadron in sunny Lemoore, California. The CO at the time was a bear of a man, had played football in college and was a Vietnam veteran. My student cohort held him in awe: We’d been told that he had received an Air Medal during the war for saving a squadron mate’s life, or his liberty anyway. The latter had come off target badly hit and managed to limp only as far as the harbor at Hai Phong before his machine came apart. The pilot had been forced to eject and was floating in his raft a mile or so off shore, when he saw an NVA patrol craft bounding out to seize him. The unlucky aviator was contemplating the austere amenities of the Hanoi Hilton when our CO roared overhead at 500 feet, firing a Shrike missile in boresight mode.