Since my last post we've had a fair amount of turnover. Now fini-flights in the AF can be a big deal, but I can honestly say I have never been a part of an individuals NO-KIDDING LAST FLIGHT EVER in the AF. My buddy Shooter, who you may remember from some pics where I am sitting in the back of the plane in flight, is retiring and about 3 weeks ago had his final flight after 20+ years of non-stop flying. 5000 hours later we say good bye to a great friend and a true warrior.
Here's a quick happy-snap following the flight
One of the great traditions associated with a fini-flight is spraying the bro down with a fire extinguisher and pouring champagne (preferably something costing less than $5) on the individual. Fire bottles and champagne are in short supply at KAF so instead what Shooter received was a dousing courtesy of the KAF Fire Department. Lets just say the old man got rolled up pretty good, we finally turned the hose off when we had him pinned against the blast barriers but only after he was crying and admitted to everyone that I was a better pilot than he. That was the act of a brave man.
Also since booze is more frowned on than man-on-man PDA here at KAF we were forced to use bottles of near-beer for Shooter. Near-beer is more commonly referred to as non-alcoholic which is about as fun as listening to John Tesh's latest interpretation of a Kenny-G album. The nice thing is if you want to drink a case of beer when you fly, apparently war is the one place you can check that little jewel off your bucket list. So a hearty farewell to a good friend who really hasn't done much since 2006 beside teach a bunch of salad munching herbivores how to be steely-eyed killers.
Cheers,
Beast
