Thoughts on Being a Veteran

I was probably 4 years old, and I instantly fell in love. She was a Ford Tri-Motor (commonly called a “Tin Goose”), built sometime in the 1920s and now being used by a small charter airline to fly passengers on a short hop out to an island in Lake Erie. Climbing up into the airplane, I looked up the aisle, saw the cockpit and was hooked.

Now fast forward 14 years of being fascinated by all things aviation – especially military aviation. Although there was little military background in my family (my parents were civilian schoolteachers, but my father had done his obligatory two-year stint in the U.S. Army), I had heard of the United States Air Force Academy while in high school. The more I learned, the more enamored I became. The thought of serving our country in general, of doing so as a USAF officer, and most importantly of having the chance to interface with military airplanes in any way—maybe even as a pilot—was exhilarating. Somehow, I managed to snag an appointment to the Academy and, even more amazingly to me, graduate from that institution four years later.