Here is the link to another trip on a military aircraft by a reporter. This time the reporter is a patriot and the story has a twist that is totally relevant to the November election. It is a joy to read!
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/006dgrlw.asp
24 Hours on the ‘Big Stick’
What you can learn about America on the deck of the USS ‘Theodore Roosevelt.’
by P.J. O’Rourke
04/28/2008, Volume 013, Issue 31
Landing on an aircraft carrier is...To begin with, you travel out to the carrier on a powerful, compact, and chunky aircraft—a weight-lifter version of a regional airline turboprop. This is a C-2 Greyhound, named after the wrong dog. C-2 Flying Pit Bull is more like it. In fact what everyone calls the C-2 is the “COD.” This is an acronym for “Curling the hair Of Dumb reporters,” although they tell you it stands for “Carrier Onboard Delivery.”
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Landing on an aircraft carrier was the most fun I’d ever had with my trousers on. And the 24 hours that I spent aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt—the “Big Stick”—were an equally unalloyed pleasure. I love big, moving machinery. And machinery doesn’t get any bigger, or more moving, than a U.S.-flagged nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that’s longer than the Empire State Building is tall and possesses four acres of flight deck. This four acres, if it were a nation, would have the fifth or sixth largest airforce in the world—86 fixed wing aircraft plus helicopters.
-—snip-—
Returning the favor of posting links to great articles, check out the article I linked in post 51.
Hint: McCain was a carrier pilot.