Friday, January 6, 2012
The aeroscout observer school taught me how to fly helicopters, and I loved it! I experienced the best of both worlds. I had all the fun of flying, but as an enlisted soldier, I had none of the responsibilities that went along with the job. However, I wasn’t satisfied. I wasn’t a pilot. I finished the second flight school packet after the course and submitted it myself—going outside my chain of command. I do not advise that you do that. I burned a lot of bridges to get what I wanted. I did get what I wanted. I went to flight school in 1988.
Wait, back up just a bit. I forgot to mention how I met my wife. I was watching TV in our company dayroom (while still a crew chief) when a friend of mine introduced me to this girl he had recently started dating. I looked at her, and I looked back at him. In my mind I knew that they didn’t belong together. I was polite however. A few weeks later I was working the night shift manning the CQ desk of our company in that same dayroom. The girl came in looking for my friend. I told her that I had no idea where he was. She stayed in the dayroom for a couple of hours while we played billiards and a few of the other games that we had in the dayroom. She denies the rest, but this is what happened. She asked me if there was a soda machine, and I walked her around a corner to show her the machine and she planted a big kiss right on my lips. She swears that it was my cheek—either way, she initiated it. We dated for a few months and when I was an aeroscout observer (1987) we got married. We’ve been married 25 years now.