Quote:
Originally Posted by fintstone
Same here. My feelings exactly...other than the NAVY/AF thing. The last 15 or so years, AF leadership has gone to crap. All PC/pity fest all the time. Maybe it was before and I was just too low on the food chain to understand how the sausage was made.
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The Navy, as I knew it, has been gone for at least 15 years. And I do love the AF, Flint, the Navy was just a better fit for my particular personality.
So, quick Sea Story, one I have written about before.
My second time through the RAG training cycle, the first two female SH-60B pilots were in my class. I was a LCDR and the senior person in the class.
They were 10 CAT 1 (beginning) students and I and another guy were Cat 4 (lots of flight time in the aircraft). The CAT 1 syllabus was 6 months, the CAT 4 syllabus 8 weeks or less depending on weather. I had over 2000 hours in the 60 at that time.
This was at NAS Mayport, Florida in the 90's so I was geobatching while my family stayed in Maryland.
The two young women in the class were and remain two of he best young aviators I have met.
They had no mentors, no one that "looked" like them, no predictive path and faced a ton of hostility. Just like the 4 Star claims.
I flew a lot of simulator time with both of them because I was bored to tears and, frankly, they really knew their stuff. It was fun to try and fool them.
On one simulator hop, for score, we had an instructor, an LT, who tried to browbeat one of young ladies I was flying the sim with...it wasn't pretty.
I stopped the hop, told the Ensign to get out of the sim and then instructed the LT that I would pillage his f'ing village if I even think he treats another student like he treated the student I was flying with.
After the hop, the young Ensign thanked me and I told her the absolute truth: "You are the first, be the best...after that it has nothing to do with you being a female, it has everything to do with the fact that you are really talented and driven. I would have done that for any Ensign as good as you..."
So, the 4 Star had it hard. Get the f over it.