My next assignment...

When I left off, I had just returned to Diego Garcia from the USS CARL VINSON and I had met Loretta Lynn. That happened pretty late in my tour on "The Rock" as it's often referred, and the rest of my time on the island was fairly uneventful.

I did, however, get a chance to go home for about two and a half weeks approximately mid-way through my tour. I took about a weeks worth of leave, and in conjunction with that I signed up for a program that allows young sailors to work for their recruiter for a week in their home town. The idea is that a sailor can talk to some of their friends who haven't done anything with their lives since HS and encourage them to join. I had joined on the Delayed Entry Program, which is a program that allows an individual to sign a contract well in advance of their actual "active duty" date. One of the benefits is that your pay calculator for time in service is based on the DEP date, rather than the date you leave for boot camp which can be up to a year or more after your DEP date! Anyway, that showed I was motivated about the Navy and the recruiter welcomed me with open arms... so I got to stay home for an extra week!

My next tour took me to NAS Whiting Field, located in Milton, FL - about 45 minutes east of Pensacola. It's where the Navy provides initial flight training for 99% of all naval aviators (which includes the Marine Corps) using the forgiving, but extremely enjoyable, two-seat T-34C Turbo Mentor! (More on that later.) For those aviators who are selected to be helicopter pilots, their initial rotary wing training also takes place at Whiting. There are two airfields that mirror each other in how they're laid out, located exactly one mile apart on the same Air Station. The fixed wing bubba's train at North Field and the Rotary Wingers train at South Field. I probably don't need to tell you that having two airports that close, with that much volume (approximately 200,000 ops a year when I was there) creates more than a few challenges unique to that particular airport. Add to that the fact that they're all in the initial stages of flight training (including student solo flights throughout the training syllabus), and it's a challenging, but fun airport to work at. I was fortunate enough to train and qualify on every control position in both control towers, as well as all of the positions in the radar room. It was exciting coming to work each day handling different scenarios in different facilities - one day I'm working fixed wing aircraft at North tower and the next I'm applying completely different procedures at South tower. Radar has a totally different set of rules & you don't get to see sunlight all day - so it too, was unique.

I thoroughly enjoyed my three and a half years there & often reflect back on that tour with great fondness. I made some real close friends, many of whom I still communicate with today. In fact, a pretty good number of them went on to very successful careers as well - we had a great team of controllers, all of whom were close.

The absolute best part of that tour revolved around the fact that as enlisted folks, we could attend a one-day course that taught us how to "Bail Out" of the aircraft in the event of a catastrophic emergency. Upon graduation we were authorized to fly in the back seat with an instructor on maintenance check flights, solo chase flights, etc. I made friends with a few of the maintenence pilots as well as the Safety Officer for the Training Air Wing and I was flying all the time! In fact, I did my first re-enlistment airborne in the T-34 - INVERTED! What a blast! On a lot of the flights we would do spins, stalls, loops, split s's, one half cuban eights, touch and go's, etc. Zero 'G' flight is cool - negative G's are murder. I made so many pilot friends, there were actually days toward the end of my tour that I'd be working Ground control and they'd ask me right over the air when I was getting off work so I could strap in and join them for a flight later in the day... it's a lot more fun flying with someone for two hours than being alone and they knew I loved flying.

The positive side effect was that I got to see the service we were providing from the other perspective - that of the aviator. I can't tell you how many times I've made traffic calls to an aircraft and gotten frustrated because he couldn't see the traffic. Let me tell you something, it's extremely difficult to see a small aircraft from the air! I also got to learn, first hand, how to read and interpret the gauges and instruments in the cockpit, which was helpful too. So, in addition to having a blast getting flight time, I learned a lot about my profession... and how to possibly do it better.

Tomorrow I'll tell you all about Sigonella, Sicily and all the fun I had there...

While I'm thinking about it - a lot of you are probably wondering how a sailor is going to his third duty station, yet still hasn't been to a ship. Well, I'll tell ya. It's simple math, really. As air traffic controllers there are only twelve aircraft carriers and ten amphibious ships that have air traffic controller billets on them. So, if a sailor gets in their transfer window there's a lot more shore duty billets to choose from then there are sea duty billets. Up to this point in my career I hadn't had an opportunity to go to sea because when I was negotiating, billets simply weren't there. I have sea duty, and you'll read all about it... Soon.