1000% fully agree. Beyond the war games, which are mostly harmless, there always seems to be real war, and real war kills. We humbly honor indeed!
"Mostly harmless" indeed.
I'm going to have to look up crewmembers on those Russian "trawlers" we (according to rumors) would locate and harass down in the Gulf of Mexico back in The Day and apologize.
High speed low passes, rigging makeshift bombsights so trash could be dumped by slower planes.....
Only time I heard of that the trawlers returned those favors was (a rumor that) a fire hose had been turned on an aircraft from a trawler and almost knocked the canopy off. (Water at 450 knots is a non-trivial event or so I've heard....)
Now all of you need to figure out if I'm telling about things I actually saw or did or if I'm just tellin' Sea Stories.
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Good stuff. DAMN good stuff. Especially since we all lived through it.