from the University of Washington in June 1935, and joined the Naval Reserve Aviation Base Seattle for flight training. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps on 1 July 1936 In April 1937, Galer was designated a Naval Aviator. 
expected a landing signal officer (LSO) to be assigned to the squadron for this task. Two weeks before the deadline CINCPAC informed him that no LSO would be forthcoming and that VMF-211 was still required to qualify. The CO recalled that Galer had spent much of the outbound voyage in the company of the LSO on the carrier that transported them to Hawaii. He summoned Galer, who readily admitted spending many hours with his buddy, the LSO. When he further confessed some familiarity with the LSO's duties, that was it. He was the new LSO for the squadron. The squadron qualified on schedule. 
worked miracles with PSP (pierced steel planking), and the "Cactus Air Force" began taking its toll on the Japanese bombers. Galer's pilots scrambled continuously to meet the Japanese aerial onslaught. Typically coastwatchers stationed in the Solomons warned them of incoming Japanese attacks. "Forty bombers headed yours," was a well-rembered radio message from the isolated coastwatchers. The fighters of VMF-224, VMF-211, and whatever else Cactus could put in the air would take off, looking to gain altitude before the Japs arrived. When the shooting started, they went for the bombers. After the dogfighting, if ammo remained, they would strafe enemy ships or ground positions. 
Wildcat was shot down. "'Barbara Jane' couldn't swim, so I had to swim off and leave her. I was fortunate to encounter the coastwatchers who assisted me in getting back the next day," he joked. This was one of three planes Galer lost to the enemy during his two and a half months on Guadalcanal - after another shoot-down, two Marines swam out from the island to assist him; a third ended with a dead-stick landing on the island. Each time, Galer went back into action, and in less than a month he accrued 11 individual kills. 
investigation, the aircraft was determined to be a 1930's-vintage F3F-2 fighter, manufactured by the Navy by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation. One of eighty-one F3F-2s built, this particular bird met its end on 29 August 1940, when a problem transferring fuel tanks forged 1st Lieutenant Robert E. Galer to ditch the aircraft during 
flight operations aboard USS Saratoga (CV-3). 
where now Brigadier General Robert E. Graler, USMC (Ret), fighter ace and Medal of Honor recipient, was there to meet it.
During the nearly four-year restoration process at the San Diego Aerospace Museum, corrosion of aluminum skins and other components required 60% replacement, and replicas of the cockpit instruments had to be fabricated. In addition, extensive work was
performed on the tail, wings, and fuselage and a Hamilton Standard propeller and Wright R-1820-22 engine were acquired for use on the aircraft. Rubber components found aboard the aircraft were in usable condition, including the original tires and even a tool kit and life raft survived their lengthy stay underwater."
The US Army's expression "hoo-ah" is a guttural response barked when troops voice approval. Its original meaning is lost to history, but some say it is derived from an old acronym HUA—Heard, Understood, and Acknowledged. I first heard the word in basic training.
Many years later it found its way into my vocabulary again when I began to meet on Wednesday mornings with a group of men to study the Scriptures. One morning one of the men—a former member of the 82nd Airborne Division—was reading one of the psalms and came to the notation selah that occurs throughout the psalms. Instead of reading “selah,” however, he growled hoo-ah, and that became our word for selah ever after.
No one knows for certain what selah actually means. Some say it is only a musical notation. It often appears after a truth that calls for a deep-seated, emotional response. In that sense hoo-ah works for me.
This morning I read Psalm 68:19: "Blessed be the Lord, who daily [day to day] loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Selah" (nkjv).
Imagine that! Every single morning God loads us up on His shoulders and carries us through the day. He is our salvation. Thus safe and secure in Him, we’ve no cause for worry or for fear. “Hoo-ah!” I say.
Psalm 68 is written from the historical context of the Hebrew worshipers. The psalmist declares the awesome power of God by calling Him the “One of Sinai” and the “God of Israel” (v. 8). By doing this he reminds the Hebrews of God’s faithfulness. Who is this God who goes out before the people? (v. 7). He is the God of Israel who spoke to Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron saying, “Let my people go” (Ex. 5:1), and He is the One of Sinai who gave them the Ten Commandments (Ex. 19–20). The psalmist reminds Israel that the God who heard their cries in Egypt still hears, and the One who provided in the desert still provides.
