[gundog]

This dovetails with a thought I had earlier today: Do any of you Freepers fly or know pilots? If so, then you know intuitively that nobody would pass up the chance to fly fighters on the National Guard's dime. It's not like Bush had to show up and sweep out the hangar and empty the trash cans. He was a fighter pilot and I never met one that wouldn't crawl through broken glass to fly.

[3catsanadog]

My cousin's husband was a fighter pilot in the Air Force and for a period of time was based in Thailand and flew missions to Vietnam during the war. He was a career Air Force man. When he retired he was a colonel (or the Air force equivalent of colonel - I admit, I'm not military officer savvy).

His son attended the Air Force Academy and also flew fighter jets. He flies commercial jets now, I think for American Airlines. Flying must be in the blood and never leaves.