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Reflections: The Jacket
Solo travel has a way of providing time – time for reflection, time for review, time for introspection. Prolonged layovers in particular, provide that time (ed – and a lot of it, if this recent trip is to be judged). It was while cooling his heels in another (not so) antiseptic terminal somewhere along his…
Reflections – NFO Copilot
In the mid-80’s, the VAW community in an attempt to address soaring OPTEMPO and a shortage of pilots tried the NFO Copilot program, wherein 2nd tour LTs and LCDRs were taken through a FRS NATOPS syllabus and qualified to fly right seat for day/VMC ops off the boat… “So Scribe, what was it like as…
Twenty-Six Years Ago Today
It began with a letter, you know – the old fashioned kind, paper and pen, that opened with “You don’t know me but we have a mutual friend…” From there it grew – a whirlwind relationship with precious moments snatched between squadron dets, workups and deployments. We found the end of one path and the…
The 11th Hour, of the 11th Day, of the 11th Month – When the Guns Fell Silent
At the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month…the guns fell silent along what was known then as the Western Front as the Allies and Germany observed the agreement to end this “War to End All Wars.” While fighting continued sporadically elsewhere, in what were fast becoming the former empires of Russia…
Time Passages: VAW-122 (1 April 1967 – 14 March 1996)
Final log entry for the Steeljaws: “My pennant is hauled down and stored. All records are in order. Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO is hereby disestablished on this 14th day of March in the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred Ninety Six” (signed) Commanding
Of Radials and Cicadas
Last couple of weeks we have been serenaded by Brood 2 offspring of the 1996 round of 17-year cicadas. With a background noise like a bad 50’s special effects soundtrack, they’ve been pretty constant but this weekend, overcome at times by the sound of Merlin and Wright piston engines as the CAF brought a P-51,…

