The picture here was taken after my December 1990 “fini flight” – my final flight – in the F-111F Aardvark, an aircraft that is now long retired from military service, just like I am.
All these years later, it still moves me to think that someone went to the trouble to take this picture and others, as a crowd of my squadron mates took the trouble to meet me at the aircraft after my flight, to celebrate my departure from the unit.
Ready to Go to War
The picture is a special gift because, when it was taken, we were all deployed and ready to go to war at a moment’s notice.
My deployment had started in the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing’s second wave to the desert, when I left my family behind in the United Kingdom on our American Labor Day weekend, 35 years ago, ruining the holiday for my wife and our two little children, and with no idea when or if I would return home.
Our military intelligence team had told us that the enemy’s capabilities were formidable; and we were expecting to take losses if peace negotiations failed and our crews had to fly into combat. But my brothers-in-arms nevertheless met me at the aircraft to cheer me on as I prepared to leave them to face those risks without me.
I have seriously conflicted feelings about war, by the way, starting with, War is horrible. But I have no conflicted feelings about the people with whom I served in uniform, especially the guys who wished me well as I literally left them in the dust.
“Fini Flight” Honors
Maybe you’ve seen other fini flight pictures. Sometimes two airfield fire trucks meet the aircraft with an arch of high-pressure water as the crew taxis under the arch to park, while fellow aviators, other colleagues, family members, and friends wait to douse the fini flight celebrant with lower-pressure fire hoses and then some champagne.
Fini flight honors are a wonderful tradition – for acknowledging time an aviator has spent in a squadron and for celebrating the next phase of that aviator’s career and life.
In my case, the rules at our deployed location meant the closest my buddies could get to champagne was near-beer O’Doul’s; the fire trucks were otherwise engaged supporting real-world operations; and my family members and non-deployed friends were thousands of miles away. But I will never forget the special sense of comradery and honor I felt when the two men in the picture with me, both of whom I considered to be tactical aviation gods, poured warm O’Doul’s down this novice lieutenant’s neck and inside my flight suit, even as I wrestled them to return the favor, though with all due respect, just like a lieutenant should.
Goose Leaves to Become Maverick
I was a Weapon Systems Officer at the time. Think Goose from Top Gun, if you’re old enough to remember the original film, except that in the F-111 I sat in the right seat instead of in the back seat. And I was starting a new phase in my career and life because I’d been selected to go to pilot training with the chance to become Maverick. As luck would have it, the timing would also get me home to England to celebrate Christmas with my family.
All that said, I was obviously excited and grateful for the good deals coming my way, but it was not easy to leave the rest of my squadron and countless other American and coalition warriors in the desert, in the middle of our preparations to push the Iraqi army out of Kuwait with all the force required.
This Was What I’d Trained For
The day our squadron commander assembled us in our operations center back in England to tell us we were deploying to the Middle East, I was ready to go, without any hesitation. It was exactly what I’d trained to do, and I certainly did not want my squadron to go to war without me.
The day I left my squadron behind, shortly after the picture here was taken, I comforted myself by believing that peace negotiations would work and that there would be no war without me. As it turns out, those negotiations failed and my squadron mates flew into combat just weeks after I left them behind.
As I watched the war on CNN from thousands of miles away, I was desperate to rejoin my squadron. But when I ignored my wife’s protests and naively called the closest Air Force command post, asking to be sent back to my unit, I was told that that chapter of my life was over – as if that could ever be true for me before my squadron mates safely returned home.
All Washed Up, but Never Out of the Fight
I was all washed up as a warrior in the 494th Tactical Fighter Squadron.
I was there with the Black Panthers for Desert Shield, but I missed Desert Storm – and I continue to feel like I abandoned my team right when the big game was about to start. But I am grateful that my time in the 494th gave me the kind of wingmen most people only dream of having, wingmen who would have courageously flown into combat alongside me and who also cheerfully sent me home to my family, even while hostilities loomed and their own families continued waiting for them to return.
After that extraordinary experience and all these years later, I continue to live my life today aspiring and committing to be that same kind of loyal, selfless, and supportive wingman for others.
O’Doul’s, anyone?
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