Once A Fighter Pilot by Jerry W. Cook

Author:Jerry W. Cook
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McGraw Hill LLC
Published: 2002-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Like a farmer, outstanding in his field

Naha Air Base, Okinawa, 1965

My backseat pilot in Okinawa was a great guy. (I’m sure he still is, although I haven’t seen him in years.) He had been a radar observer in the Air Defense Command before getting a pilot training slot. He certainly didn’t intend to wind up right back in the rear seat of an airplane directing intercepts again. He used to refer to himself as a “PSO,” which stood for “Plenty-Screwed Officer.” I’ll refer to him as Dick, his real first name. PSO also happened to be the original official title for F-4 backseaters, which was Pilot, Systems Operator.

He didn’t let his “screwing” affect his attitude or job performance. He was an excellent pilot, and I let him fly the jet as much as possible. He was absolutely the best at directing intercepts that I had ever seen. In fact, he was such an expert that our flight commander recognized it and wanted him to frequently brief the other members of the flight on air-to-air intercepts.

Our flight commander was a major at the time and a very sharp guy. He was dedicated and hard working. It was obvious to me at the time that he would go far in the Air Force. He retired as a major general! However, the flight commander had one very annoying habit that just absolutely drove my backseater nuts. While Dick was trying to give the very briefings that the commander had asked him to give, the flight commander would continually interrupt to give his own ideas and suggestions. This completely messed up Dick’s well-planned and precise briefings, and besides, the commander’s inputs were not always correct. This continued until one day Dick’s face turned red, and he just threw up his hands and walked out. I don’t think the flight commander had a clue as to why. He just didn’t realize how disruptive and irritating he was being.

Several days later, Dick and I were in the base exchange. He walked over to the greeting card section to find a card for one of his family members back home. Suddenly he reached over and picked up a card. He had a very mischievous look on his face. He handed me the card and grinned. I looked at it. It had a large block-letter message on the front that read “TO A MAN WHO IS OUTSTANDING IN HIS FIELD!” I opened it up, and there was this cartoon character of a farmer standing out in the middle of a hay field with a piece of straw in his teeth and a silly grin. The writing said, “LIKE THIS FARMER!”

I looked at Dick and asked who it was for.

He said, “You’ll see.”

Dick couldn’t wait to get the card in the mail. He addressed it and mailed it from the local post office. He then began watching our commander like a hawk. We had our mail delivered to our squadron area, and sure enough in a couple of days it came.

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