Latest / So There I Was / It's Like Surfing in the Sky Episode 147

Transcript

It's Like Surfing in the Sky Episode 147 · So There I Was

• 0:00
  Quiet, numbskulls. I'm broadcasting. Hello, you're listening to the podcast. So there I was.
• 0:05
  This is episode number 147.
• 0:08
  It's like surfing in the sky.
• 0:11
  Yeah, it is. What a great description, man.
• 0:14
  And not the first guy who ever went and saw the Blues and said,
• 0:18
  oh, I want to do that. Right?
• 0:21
  I mean, the Blue Angels have been an inspiration for, well, probably too many
• 0:27
  of our guests to count. Yeah, well, including the guy that's talking right now.
• 0:32
  Right. And so here's the thing.
• 0:34
  Maybe that's why the Navy keeps spending money on what looks like we have a section. Weird, right?
• 0:43
  It's almost like they knew what they were doing. Go figure.
• 0:48
  Oh, man, that's a lot of money, but it is a powerful recruiting tool.
• 0:53
  No doubt about it. Our guest, Wolfie, flew as number three and number four for
• 0:58
  a couple years and had an amazing career in the Navy,
• 1:01
  but had a different path into the Navy than most of our guests.
• 1:08
  Very interesting. He really did.
• 1:10
  Hey, let's get some show business out of the way and then come back to that,
• 1:13
  because I want to talk about how he got into that.
• 1:18
  But we need to say thanks to the Fighting Through podcast. It's a WW2 podcast.
• 1:26
  And the gent actually goes back and reads the memoirs of people who were there.
• 1:31
  Been there, done that, and got the T-shirt and actually fought the war.
• 1:35
  That's badass. It is badass.
• 1:37
  It's fightingthroughpodcast.co.uk. And it's up there on Spotify and Apple and all that.
• 1:44
  And fascinating to listen to some of these memoirs of people that went there.
• 1:50
  It started with his own dad, who he helped get his dad's memoirs published,
• 1:54
  but some really cool stuff there.
• 1:58
  Well, we also need to say thanks to our other sponsor, HSI Wealth Strategies.
• 2:03
  Right. Robbie Walling. Reach out to him at robert.walling at novembermike.com,
• 2:10
  robert.walling at nm.com, or call him at 214-NM.
• 2:18
  538-7030. That's 214-JET-7030. Nice. Yeah.
• 2:26
  So thank you so much, Robbie.
• 2:29
  And thank you to other people who have lost all sense of financial common sense,
• 2:35
  cracked their wallets, and threw money at us. Right. Yeah.
• 2:40
  So need a couple call signs here, Figs. We got Paul Shepardson,
• 2:44
  who threw $25 in our direction. We're deeply grateful for that. That's generous.
• 2:50
  I think he's called saying good shepherd.
• 2:54
  Good shepherd. Good. There you go.
• 2:57
  Yeah. And then a Welshman by the name of Clint Budd is now a pilot on Patreon.
• 3:04
  I think there's no other choice but to call him wiser.
• 3:08
  Clint Budd wiser. And thank you, gentlemen, for losing all sense and good judgment
• 3:16
  and throwing money at us. but we do appreciate it. It's very humbling. Thank you.
• 3:19
  And then a new, a repeat new, no pun intended, tanker aircraft commander.
• 3:28
  By the name of Sal Marinella. Sal's been on the show and has thrown another $200.
• 3:36
  God bless you, Sal. Grandpa Sal. New call for him. Grandpa.
• 3:40
  Grandpa. That's awesome. Congratulations on that. Semper Fi,
• 3:44
  and thank you for losing all judgment.
• 3:46
  Indeed. money at us so indeed so hey
• 3:50
  let's get back to the show real quick so wolfie goes and interviews to be a
• 3:57
  blue angel rails it absolutely rails it nails it that's couldn't have gone any
• 4:02
  better right couldn't have gone any better couldn't have gone any better yeah sorry not interesting,
• 4:08
  it's it's it's awesome to hear him tell that it's it's you know because you're right there Right.
• 4:14
  And here's the other thing that's interesting. What what possibly caused that?
• 4:19
  Because they had a they had another one that he talked about winning.
• 4:23
  He did eventually go back and make the team, obviously.
• 4:26
  And there was another one and everyone unanimously was like,
• 4:30
  yeah, let's bring this guy down and came in.
• 4:32
  He goes, it was a textbook interview on how you do this.
• 4:36
  And everybody voted to me. And one person raised their hand and said,
• 4:39
  really, did you guys not see it?
• 4:42
  Right. Hey, don't give it away. Don't give it that far away.
• 4:46
  I won't, but it's like, holy cow, that's what it takes to not make the blues?
• 4:51
  Nobody can make it. How does anybody get on the team?
• 4:55
  Right. So, yeah. But similar, getting into the Navy at all.
• 5:03
  It's a shot he got in the Navy. Just say no.
• 5:07
  No. Right? The answer is always no.
• 5:10
  Yeah, that's a good story, too. Yeah, but never quit is the motto,
• 5:15
  the recurring theme of this show. No doubt about it.
• 5:19
  Yeah, for real. That's spot on repeat. Spot on, buddy.
• 5:23
  What do you say we get out of the way? Well, how about we quit?
• 5:26
  Yeah, get out of the way and hear a really great interview.
• 5:29
  This is a lot of fun. Don't sit on the ejection seat handle.
• 5:32
  Dude, don't sit on the ejection seat handle. This is a true story about crossing
• 5:36
  the pond at night in the world's smallest cockpit on the tanker through the weather.
• 5:46
  Oh, and to the tanker crew who did that, thanks a lot. We really appreciated that.
• 5:51
  Music.
• 5:54
  I'm just kidding. No, I'm not.
• 6:05
  There I was, crossing the pond and you could see that I wasn't exactly fine.
• 6:12
  So there I was. It's August 21st, 22nd. We're in 1998.
• 6:18
  I'm the number three pilot for the Blue Angels left wing.
• 6:22
  We're coming in for the Diamond 360, which is the signature move for the actual team.
• 6:28
  And my left wing is maybe 150 feet off the deck, maybe 125. And we're finally
• 6:35
  starting to bring the demonstration into a tighter set.
• 6:38
  And number two and I collide.
• 6:41
  Oh, that's where I was. Oh.
• 6:49
  Hey, somebody was rubbing. Yeah, there was a little right.
• 7:00
  So that's how all great aviation tales begin.
• 7:04
  Greetings everyone repeat here coming to you from the icy stormy new hampshire
• 7:10
  tonight where's my cohorts i'm in carney missouri it is winter time it's just
• 7:16
  not it's just there's no precip it's just cold in a well digger's ass,
• 7:21
  Well, there's that right on. Yeah. So, well, welcome to Wolfie, Naval Aviator Surfer.
• 7:29
  And I'm kind of wondering, I know it was after him, but was it Lawman?
• 7:35
  Because he hit the boss all the time.
• 7:39
  Yeah, I learned that from Lawman right now. You will not allow,
• 7:44
  I will not allow you to disparage Lawman in my company. He's one of the most
• 7:48
  epic naval aviators I know, someone I revere tremendously, as I know we all do.
• 7:54
  That's a ditto. That's a ditto. What a wonderful guy.
• 7:56
  We had the privileges of flying Harriers with Lawman, which is where we first
• 8:00
  met him. And what a wonderful gentleman.
• 8:04
  So, all right. Well, so I kind of alluded to it there. Started off as a surfer.
• 8:11
  How do you wind up? Yeah, how'd you go from surfing to a naval aviator?
• 8:15
  How'd that work out? Yeah. And, you know, and I think all our experiences in
• 8:20
  aviation, and it doesn't matter whether it's Navy, Air Force,
• 8:24
  commercial or whatever, it's a very legacy driven industry, right?
• 8:28
  Wherein dad flew, so therefore the son or daughter is going to fly and everybody else flies.
• 8:33
  I had no military background, no military experience. The only experience I
• 8:37
  had in the military growing up was Point Magoo was right up the road and is
• 8:42
  quite possibly the best wave in all of California called Pelican Point.
• 8:49
  And I was dying to meet people that could get me on base to go surf there.
• 8:54
  The only other accident was taking Zodiacs and jumping off the Zodiac and surfing.
• 8:58
  And so zippy experience and to the point where, you know, I surfed throughout
• 9:06
  my high school years and then I went to Hawaii for about two to three years,
• 9:11
  taking tourists out sailing on sailboats and surfing a ton.
• 9:15
  And I wanted to come back and make something of my life.
• 9:20
  And I thought, what the heck, I'm going to be the next Brad Pitt,
• 9:23
  even though he wasn't discovered then, but I'm going to be the next Brad Pitt.
• 9:27
  And I come back to California. I'm going to acting school and I'm working in restaurants.
• 9:34
  And I changed jobs to this restaurant in Westwood, California.
• 9:39
  And there's this stunningly beautiful woman inside and out working the cash register.
• 9:47
  And the manager saw me looking at her. He goes, Dave, we don't allow employees
• 9:52
  to date here because a cashier and a waiter embezzled about $60,000 two months ago.
• 9:58
  So you're forbidden to date any girls in the restaurant.
• 10:02
  Okay, bummer. So I don't introduce myself to her.
• 10:07
  I don't talk to her. Okay, I quit.
• 10:14
  And we finally strike up a conversation.
• 10:17
  She introduces herself to me,
• 10:19
  and it's crystal clear that her faith is the most important thing to her.
• 10:24
  She's a very, very good Christian girl, and I'm anything but a good Christian boy.
• 10:30
  And so we start dating and we actually go to Paul, the general manager says,
• 10:38
  we are never going to steal money out of here, but we really like each other.
• 10:41
  Do you mind if we date? And he actually allowed it to happen.
• 10:45
  And so it's going great. And I know she's a good Christian girl and I'm spending
• 10:52
  a lot of money on her. We're going on dates.
• 10:54
  I won't hold her hand. I won't try and kiss her or anything.
• 10:57
  And she's just wondering, what gives?
• 11:00
  I mean, I'm attracted to this guy and it seems like... And so we started getting
• 11:06
  pretty serious and she went home and told her parents, mom and dad,
• 11:10
  I think I want to marry this guy.
• 11:11
  And they're like, oh no, he's got to do something with his life.
• 11:15
  And her dad got me VIP passage of the Blue Angels at Point Magoo in 1983, and I saw that show.
• 11:25
  And it was like surfing in the sky. And that just, I mean, that's just my mentality.
• 11:29
  I had no clue how difficult it
• 11:33
  was to get in any cockpit, in any naval aviation aircraft. I had no clue.
• 11:39
  But I saw that shown and inspired me.
• 11:41
  And I went and spoke to the recruiters and the recruiters. Oh,
• 11:46
  yeah, we'll get you into flight school.
• 11:48
  It takes four years and then you're going to come back and we'll send you off
• 11:50
  to flight school. I'm like, oh, yeah.
• 11:52
  I'm like, that doesn't sound right. And I'm kind of old.
• 11:56
  And so I called Becky's dad and I said, hey, Mr.
• 11:59
  Conroy, it's Dave Silke. Yeah, Dave, what is it? And he said,
• 12:02
  well, I'm looking at joining the Navy, but they want me to enlist and they want
• 12:06
  me to do it for four years. And then they send me to flight school. No, no, no, no.
• 12:11
  Don't do that. And I'm like, OK. He goes, go and talk to the ROTC unit at UCLA.
• 12:17
  I said, OK, so I call and make an appointment and I meet with this gentleman,
• 12:23
  Lieutenant Ionello, and he's a nuclear submarine officer.
• 12:26
  And, you know, aviators are a bit freewheeling.
• 12:30
  Nuclear submarine officers are not. It's yes and no, black, white.
• 12:34
  You know, there's no, yeah, there's no art form, right? No, no.
• 12:39
  You don't get to say, well, today we're going to try this. There is no trying
• 12:43
  anything. You're totally going to execute perfectly.
• 12:47
  Do or do not, there is no try.
• 12:52
  And he sits me down and it was, you know, it was a normal office space,
• 12:56
  but I was really uncomfortable because there's a bunch of military guys floating around.
• 13:00
  You know, I'm still in my surfer gear, kind of, you know, I dressed up for it,
• 13:04
  but long hair and one. He goes, OK, Dave, we're going to start this interview.
• 13:08
  And it's critically important that you be honest because we got ways to figure
• 13:12
  out whether you're lying or not. And I'm like, oh, gosh, you know,
• 13:16
  I'm thinking I'm looking for cameras. I'm feeling my seat.
• 13:19
  I have no idea what the heck he's talking about, but I thoroughly believe him.
• 13:23
  And, you know, we start the interview and it's going great.
• 13:27
  You know, it's probably the second best interview in the history of the world.
• 13:32
  And I was lucky to be involved in the first best interview of the history of
• 13:36
  the world. And we can talk about that a little bit later.
• 13:39
  But so, you know, it's going great. And he goes, okay, Dave,
• 13:43
  so have you ever done any drugs? And I'm like, oh.
• 13:48
  You know, he told me he knows. And I'm like, ah, yeah, crap.
• 13:56
  And he's like, no. And I'm like, yeah. Yeah.
• 14:01
  And he's like, like what? And I said, well, marijuana and cocaine.
• 14:07
  And he's like, and he was so defeated.
• 14:10
  I felt like I just, you know, I let him down.
• 14:14
  Down and and he's he's like well okay anything else i'm like crap man i told
• 14:21
  him a surfer in the 70s you should know this answer and i said well yeah like what and i said well.
• 14:30
  Quaaludes and mushrooms but i didn't like them and he's
• 14:33
  like okay interview's over and
• 14:36
  i'm thinking man mistakes were made right
• 14:39
  i'm like
• 14:42
  bummer and he goes you know dade i don't know
• 14:45
  why but we're going to start this interview over again and when
• 14:48
  i ask you that question your answer
• 14:51
  is no and it's always no because if you if if you
• 14:54
  tell anybody you may lose your job and you may definitely absolutely
• 14:57
  impact my career does that does that make sense i said you bet okay
• 15:01
  we're starting the interview over again dave have you ever done drugs i said
• 15:04
  no i'm a surfer but i never partake i care about
• 15:06
  my body never would do that okay you're in and
• 15:10
  it was a great great life
• 15:14
  lesson for me no question you know
• 15:16
  and and you know and and those of us that have had the gift of participating
• 15:22
  in naval aviation realize what an amazing gift it is that's the friendships
• 15:31
  the hardest of times but the best of times and just the commitment of everyone,
• 15:36
  rowing in the same direction every single day, no matter how hard it gets.
• 15:42
  I still pinch myself to think that I was part of that. I didn't deserve it.
• 15:48
  I don't think any of us really did, but it was pretty damn awesome,
• 15:52
  wasn't it? Yeah, no question.
• 15:55
  You triggered a memory. I was sitting across from a GS employee,
• 16:00
  old retired guy, doing my paperwork for getting into Marine Corps OCS.
• 16:05
  And he asked me the exact same question. And I said, well, yeah,
• 16:09
  I guess, yeah, you know, I smoked marijuana.
• 16:13
  And he goes, how many times? And I'm like, geez, I don't know, like, I don't know, 50?
• 16:21
  And he goes, how about once?
• 16:24
  And I'm like, okay, and he goes, once it is. Oh.
• 16:32
  Brilliant. Yeah. That's like Joe Walsh. You only got drunk once.
• 16:36
  You've been drunk for 20 years, but you know.
• 16:39
  Flash forward, I'm sitting around with a bunch of Marine buddies.
• 16:43
  We're in Pensacola one night and we're talking about college and stuff.
• 16:47
  And we're talking about, you know, our pathways into getting a commission and
• 16:52
  the subject of who was who was forthright when they ask if they did drugs.
• 16:56
  And I was the only one in the room that admitted to it.
• 16:59
  Everybody had done them, but I was only one like, how the hell did I get here
• 17:04
  then? Because everybody else said, nope, absolutely not.
• 17:08
  They were better prepared. Someone gave them the gouge.
• 17:13
  That's the gouge I got no never not even ever never thought about it I don't
• 17:19
  even know how to spell it Wolfie like you I had zero guidance nobody no aviation
• 17:25
  in my family you know no it was just I was figuring it out as I was going,
• 17:29
  All right. So UCLA, Naval ROTC scholarship, UCLA.
• 17:36
  So no scholarship. No scholarship.
• 17:39
  We paid for it on our own. So I went to junior college, Santa Monica City College.
• 17:45
  So I started later. Obviously, my route was a little bit lengthened.
• 17:49
  So I had to get out of college in two years and three quarters.
• 17:54
  And so I had to go to City College and then to UCLA and graduate.
• 17:58
  And the reason that was is because you were you're coming up on the age limit
• 18:02
  to go to 27 years old was the max you could be to go to flight school.
• 18:06
  And so we were fortunate enough to graduate in a year and a half.
• 18:11
  We didn't have to take all year and three quarters.
• 18:15
  And and we actually had our first baby during that time.
• 18:20
  Wow. And I'm taking her to class with me.
• 18:23
  And I'll tell you what, if if if I was to start a dating app for guys searching
• 18:29
  for the right woman, I'd say, OK, find a baby,
• 18:33
  put her in a stroller, go on campus because the attention you got was just crazy.
• 18:41
  And they were beautiful and you know
• 18:44
  i joke and i said you know they would come up to me and
• 18:47
  i never said this but i always joke i said yeah this is my my
• 18:50
  sister's daughter she died in a fiery car
• 18:53
  crash and i'm just taking care of her and becky
• 18:56
  was like i don't care as long as she as long as
• 18:59
  he brings her home i'm fine yeah that's
• 19:03
  great yeah hold on the daughter or
• 19:06
  the new dishwasher sure who are you bringing home nice yeah oh that's funny
• 19:14
  all right so what what year were you commissioned so i was commissioned i want
• 19:20
  to say december 13th december 14th 1989.
• 19:28
  Okay. So you were post, yeah. So you were post top, top gun movie.
• 19:32
  So you're probably, so, Hey, did you go to AOC S or you were ROTC?
• 19:37
  ROTC. Yeah. I got my commission from ROTC. Did you guys have to do any kind
• 19:42
  of a bulldog or any kind of a, or was everything what you learned about being
• 19:46
  an officer in ROTC class?
• 19:48
  I'm not familiar with how thorough that is.
• 19:51
  A hundred percent everything. I mean, I went from ROTC graduation,
• 19:56
  down to pensacola florida started flight school okay
• 20:00
  nice okay it's a very gentlemanly way
• 20:03
  to do it yeah i don't know i
• 20:05
  would have gotten through what you guys had to go through oh who knows who knows
• 20:09
  but the fact the matter is is you crammed four years worth of college in in
• 20:14
  a year and a half yeah yeah that's that's that's saying something right there
• 20:20
  well i mean it was i was a I was a history major. So that tells you something.
• 20:25
  But everybody says, so what was your specialty? And I said, Tuesday and Thursday history.
• 20:29
  And they're like, what? And I said, I only took my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays
• 20:33
  because I had to work Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
• 20:36
  And, you know, it was amazing, again, how the stars aligned,
• 20:41
  you know, that I had professors that were willing to give me extra time and
• 20:46
  help me get some information that I wouldn't have otherwise had.
• 20:51
  Right fantastic well it and it's
• 20:55
  funny that at that age i think there's some
• 20:57
  little bit of extra maturity that just goes so much further you know the difference
• 21:03
  between 20 and 24 oh yeah yes it's night and day so i agree so you get to pensacola
• 21:12
  a ai i think they called it still in those days Aviation Indoc.
• 21:16
  What was that? 10 weeks, 6 weeks, something like that? I want to say 10 weeks.
• 21:20
  Here's how engines work. Yeah.
• 21:22
  Here's how engine works. Go do the Navy obstacle course. Yeah.
• 21:28
  Did that suck or what, Fig?
• 21:30
  Well, running in the sand. It was running in the sand. It was running in the
• 21:34
  sand. Running in the sand.
• 21:36
  The swim stuff wasn't crazy difficult. I was very comfortable in the water. Yeah.
• 21:43
  You know, I'm trying to think of the most challenging thing,
• 21:48
  and I'd love to hear your guys the most challenging.
• 21:50
  Because you guys had to go through all that stuff as well, right, at AACS?
• 21:54
  Oh, yeah. Even more so.
• 21:56
  Well, so PLCs was separate. Then we did six months of what's called the basic school,
• 22:02
  which is, you know, how to wear your uniform, how to be a platoon commander
• 22:06
  in a rifle platoon, how to fire the different weapons, the grenade launchers, the .50 cal.
• 22:13
  All that stuff and then we got to go to pensacola okay did
• 22:18
  you guys do the box and then i got the oh yeah and then i
• 22:20
  was saying as i told you earlier i got to do almost three years in
• 22:23
  hawk missiles in the air defense community before i
• 22:26
  finally got myself back down to flight school where i belonged
• 22:29
  so yeah which
• 22:32
  i think made me a better flight student
• 22:35
  and because by the time i had gotten there
• 22:38
  i was now 25 and i had some command
• 22:41
  time under my belt and learned a lot from the
• 22:44
  young marines that uh that i was charged with
• 22:47
  leading i think i learned more from
• 22:49
  them than they learned from me so oh no doubt yeah
• 22:53
  i was i was referencing the uh the the one
• 22:56
  thing about ai that sticks out for me personally was
• 22:59
  the boxing and i remember
• 23:02
  i'm sitting there and i'm i was you know in pretty good
• 23:05
  shape and a reasonable size but i'm on the i'm on the the heavy
• 23:08
  class and and i'm boxing against the heaviest class
• 23:11
  guy there and my buddies he went to the naval academy all my buddies from the
• 23:15
  naval academy are going hey man boy that draw sucks that guy was a golden glove
• 23:21
  at the naval academy and i'm like no yes and i'm like crap and so i i pull him aside and I said, hey.
• 23:30
  You know, obviously I can kick your ass. You can kick my ass.
• 23:34
  How about we just take it easy, get through this. I don't want to hurt you.
• 23:37
  You don't want to hurt me. He goes, I'm in.
• 23:40
  And so we get in and we're jabbing a little bit. And it's crystal clear this
• 23:44
  guy can't box, can't find. I mean, there's just no way. So I just set you up.
• 23:48
  I start wailing on the guy. And he's just, you should have seen the fear.
• 23:54
  What the hell are you doing? I thought we had an agreement. And I said,
• 23:58
  well, that was when you wore a golden glove.
• 24:02
  And so if this guy ever hears I don't remember his name, I apologize.
• 24:07
  Well, that brings back, you're triggering a bunch of memories.
• 24:13
  Yeah, man. But this ain't about me. This is about you. So which VT squadron did you go to?
• 24:21
  So I was a Red Bull VT. VT3? VT3.
• 24:27
  The Red Knights. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then out to Kingsville.
• 24:34
  Okay. And I want to say...
• 24:39
  I don't remember. I remember crystal clear, Skipper Geiger, but I don't remember
• 24:44
  the VT number, unfortunately.
• 24:47
  Well, it was 2021, 22, or 23. 21. 21, thank you.
• 24:53
  See, you're in this, so you're hearing this stuff over and over again.
• 24:56
  Well, I spent three years down in Kingsville as an instructor at the end of my active duty tour.
• 25:02
  So I was a VT22 guy.
• 25:04
  VT21 and 22 stood up the T45. goss
• 25:08
  okay okay vt23 went away vt23
• 25:11
  was the t2 squadron okay well that's
• 25:15
  pretty odd so when so when did you get your wings there it is 1980 nine actually
• 25:22
  so so i commissioned 1987 got my wings 1989 oh commission 87 that's the same
• 25:29
  year i guess same year i got commissioned really and And where were you?
• 25:33
  Well, I got, I got, so I went to, I went to college in Missouri.
• 25:37
  Okay. And, uh, graduated in May of 87 and went right on active duty and then
• 25:42
  did the, you know, the basic school and all that stuff. And then.
• 25:46
  Fig was a Meridiot and I did B, I was in B-Ville in 89. Okay.
• 25:50
  Yeah. I showed up in Pennsylvania.
• 25:52
  I showed up in Meridian in the fall. So I showed up in flight school in 88.
• 25:58
  Show. Yeah. Fall of eight or spring of 88. and then meridian i got got my wings in january of 90.
• 26:06
  Wait we had to wait we had to wait till after christmas i think we were done
• 26:09
  in november there wasn't a winging or something and it's a long time ago oh
• 26:14
  yeah there it is red knights beautiful so out of uh out of flight school what,
• 26:23
  would fleet what kind of aircraft did you go to f-18s first
• 26:27
  choice doc sholl and i doc sholl was
• 26:30
  a solopide on the blue angels i don't
• 26:33
  know what carrier i had he got a carrier but we were kind
• 26:36
  of lockstep throughout flight school i always
• 26:39
  wanted f-18s on the west coast and he always wanted
• 26:42
  a7s on the east coast and so i remember
• 26:46
  walking into the training room one time and doc's going through
• 26:49
  the records i'm like what are you doing and i look and he's looking at my record
• 26:52
  because he was keeping track of where i was and he felt bad about it but the
• 26:57
  day prior i was doing the exact same thing with him who's got the more yeah
• 27:04
  who's gonna get what yeah that's great.
• 27:09
  Did you say you went west or east coast? I went west coast.
• 27:13
  I got the gift of going down to VINFAP 101, down to VMFAT 101, down in El Toro.
• 27:20
  Oh, nice. And so, you know, the Marines are just so focused operationally.
• 27:28
  It's like, let's just fly.
• 27:30
  Let's, you know, work hard and stuff. And I love that training experience.
• 27:34
  It was different than what I had received in the military. But the coolest thing
• 27:38
  was I had access to San Onofre slash trestles every day.
• 27:45
  And I would drive down there. I'd fly and then I'd go down and surf trestles
• 27:48
  for a couple of hours. It was just nirvana.
• 27:53
  Surfing was obviously a big deal for me early on. And I said surfer out of the
• 27:57
  waves, but you can't take the waves out of surf or something like that,
• 28:00
  right? Well, that's awesome. Yeah.
• 28:02
  Let's back up just a little bit to flight school and ask, did you any any particular
• 28:07
  challenges, any funny or scary moments or anything where you went, oh, maybe, you know,
• 28:13
  this isn't for me or this is going to be harder or different than I expected?
• 28:16
  You know, anything along those lines?
• 28:18
  I got to be honest with you, my my my training.
• 28:24
  I always felt very well prepared. I never had an aha moment,
• 28:29
  you know, as some folks do.
• 28:32
  I always felt like, you know, I'm on borrowed time here. Someone's going to
• 28:36
  figure out that I don't belong.
• 28:38
  And so I was always trying to follow the rules, you know, and not push the envelope.
• 28:44
  And I never had the confidence that some of the other guys did that I just admired
• 28:47
  the heck out. Oh, yeah, I'm doing this. I'm doing that.
• 28:49
  I'm like, oh, I don't want to get busted, man.
• 28:52
  I got a family to provide for. So, yeah, nothing.
• 28:57
  Well, one unsafe issue was in T2s, we're going out carrier qualifying.
• 29:05
  Mama Bear's pregnant, but her
• 29:07
  sister's living in Kingsville with her while I'm out there at the boat.
• 29:12
  I'm briefed up and I'm on the ladder at 1600, ready to go out to the boat to
• 29:17
  get my carrier landings and come back.
• 29:20
  And she called the squadron because they were advised to call the squadron.
• 29:25
  And she said, look, don't do anything to Dave. Don't say anything to Dave.
• 29:29
  I just want you to know I'm fine,
• 29:31
  but I'm heading to the hospital with my sister. The skipper hears it.
• 29:34
  And the skipper walks out to the plane. I mean, I'm literally got a foot over
• 29:38
  the ledge and he walks out and says, Hey, worm, come down here.
• 29:43
  I need to talk to you. And I'm like, yes, sir.
• 29:45
  And he goes, yeah, your wife's pregnant. I said, okay, I'm fine.
• 29:49
  Can we go? He goes, no, you're not going out today. And so we go back to his
• 29:54
  office, talk about all the maturations of what could happen.
• 29:58
  And I'm like, well, I can jump on the plane going back to Kingsville today,
• 30:03
  see my son get born and then come back. No, that's not going to work. Were you a Key West?
• 30:08
  Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And the
• 30:11
  only plan that he allowed was you've got
• 30:14
  a brief at four o'clock in the morning and you'll
• 30:17
  fly out at six to the john f
• 30:20
  kennedy and i'm like okay so
• 30:23
  he pulls me off the plane i have no clue that my
• 30:26
  wife's given birth and i'm going out
• 30:29
  to fly with no knowledge of it and he pulls me off the plane i didn't sleep
• 30:35
  but an hour maybe i'm constantly checking on her and seeing and i go out there
• 30:41
  and things are going great until my very last trap and i just suck the power
• 30:45
  off because i got high and just this blood-curdling power,
• 30:50
  power, power, power.
• 30:51
  And I'm like, I'm giving it all she's got, Scotty.
• 30:55
  And, you know, I barely made it over the ramp.
• 30:59
  And, you know, that was, you know, certainly an eye-opening moment.
• 31:05
  And it taught me to, you know, make certain I'm assessing correctly whenever
• 31:10
  I get in a leadership position, the capability of the individual where they
• 31:15
  are emotionally, physically, and everything else.
• 31:18
  Was that by chance in July?
• 31:24
  Yeah, it was definitely in the summertime. I think I was.
• 31:29
  Yes. He was, yeah. He was born June 13th, I won't know.
• 31:36
  July 13th. Okay, there you go. Wow. Were you there?
• 31:41
  Oh, I got to go look. I got a picture on the wall over here.
• 31:44
  I got to go look at the date.
• 31:45
  So he'll go grab that, and I'll tell a quick story on that.
• 31:49
  Of course, remember all the T-shirts. You could never get away with this t-shirt today.
• 31:54
  But of course, I did the Lexington for my carrier calls in both airplanes.
• 31:58
  But the one class, I don't remember if it was in front of us or behind us,
• 32:04
  who went out to the Kennedy.
• 32:05
  So I'm assuming it was the same boat in the July there.
• 32:09
  And their class t-shirt had the Marilyn Monroe picture where she's standing
• 32:16
  over the grate and her skirt is blowing up. And the caption on the t-shirt was, I bounced on JFK.
• 32:26
  And yeah, you could never get away with that t-shirt as a class shirt today.
• 32:32
  I bet you they don't even do class shirts anymore. Probably not.
• 32:38
  July 12th, 1989. Oh.
• 32:41
  I went to the Kennedy and T2s out of Key West.
• 32:46
  There you go. so you guys were neck and neck were were you Pontel you remember
• 32:52
  Pontel the name yes yes he was he was so I was in a I was in a fours when that
• 33:00
  happened to him yeah I think same,
• 33:04
  yeah Pontel yep yep.
• 33:09
  Now you've got to tell us what that was. Was that the gent who flipped the T2? Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:15
  Okay. Yeah. That was horrible. Killed people on the deck and didn't work out.
• 33:20
  And all the lessons learned from that.
• 33:23
  You know, I think, you know, as horrific as that was,
• 33:28
  you know, and I do not diminish the pain that caused families and everything else,
• 33:33
  but the way the Navy deep-dived that specific topic,
• 33:36
  you know, and the one thing that that
• 33:39
  they hammered and continued to hammer on was
• 33:42
  work it on speed and remember coming out you you as an LSO you were never allowed
• 33:49
  to say that you either had to tell them you're slow or you're fast it was working
• 33:53
  on speed and and and he sucked the power off because he was high and he thought
• 33:57
  he was you know fast and never to recover.
• 34:02
  Sad yeah no and there's
• 34:05
  there's horror horrific video of that on youtube
• 34:09
  for those who want to yeah all right all
• 34:14
  right so let's get you out of flight school get the hornets going surfing flying
• 34:19
  you know in the afternoon flying hornets in the morning it's a tough life but
• 34:23
  someone's got it yeah yeah right yeah let's go here and uh here's here's i i
• 34:28
  gotta i gotta know right now Now,
• 34:29
  did you make it to the fleet as a fully qualified F-18 pilot before the first Gulf War kicked off?
• 34:40
  Did you fly combat missions in the first Gulf War? Oh, yeah.
• 34:43
  Yeah, absolutely. I'm kind of, yeah. Yeah.
• 34:47
  Well, repeat, and I watched you and everybody else.
• 34:52
  We were in the only Harrier squadron that didn't deploy.
• 34:56
  Did not or did? Did not. Did not deploy. It was us and the rag.
• 35:01
  The rag didn't go, and we didn't go. Every other Harrier squadron and Marine
• 35:04
  Corps made it to the desert. That's right.
• 35:07
  What are two things you'll never find in saudi arabia a ham sandwich and a bulldog.
• 35:17
  So yeah oh that is rich are you allowed to say that oh yeah it's sucked at the time,
• 35:27
  yeah yes sir so all right all right pick it up repeat where are we going with
• 35:32
  this yeah so all All right.
• 35:33
  So you get out to the fleet, which, which squadron did you go to first?
• 35:37
  So I went to VFA 147, the Argonauts under Mad Rod and a really good squadron, a great place to go.
• 35:49
  And obviously your first tour, there's so many vivid memories.
• 35:54
  It's unfortunate because I wish I had stayed in contact with all those guys
• 35:58
  because they were influential in my life. Your first tour, I think,
• 36:03
  is probably your most important tour.
• 36:05
  Determines, you know, whether you enjoy the Navy or don't. Determines,
• 36:09
  you know, your success factor, I think, in general terms.
• 36:12
  And I could not have been set up better with the crew I had from Beef Wellington
• 36:16
  and Juice Iuso and all the wonderful, you know, Case Casey, all the department heads.
• 36:23
  Spectacular privilege to be an Argonaut.
• 36:26
  Nice. Jack Gallagher. Jack Gallagher and Bebe Taj, and they were my roommates.
• 36:31
  And we got in plenty of trouble together.
• 36:35
  There it is. Yeah.
• 36:38
  Beautiful. Got the sword. Awesome. That's flying. Yeah. Love it. Yeah.
• 36:43
  All right. And so, but it wasn't very long before you found yourself over in the Middle East then.
• 36:49
  Yeah, it was, you know, I want to say I'm a little cloudy on the times and dates.
• 36:55
  You know, there's there's a you know, as you get to be my age,
• 37:00
  I'm not going to suggest our age, but there's so much up here.
• 37:04
  And in order for me to grab it, I don't know what what drive I have it on, what thumb drive it is.
• 37:11
  So it takes time. You need a trigger.
• 37:15
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I went to combat relatively quickly.
• 37:20
  Yeah. As Fick puts it, as you put more on the iceberg, more penguins fall off.
• 37:26
  Right. There's only so much room on the berg.
• 37:31
  Well, were you a JG when you flew in combat on that first tour?
• 37:36
  I'm pretty certain I was, yeah. Okay. No doubt.
• 37:39
  Were you a wingman or were you already a champion? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 37:42
  The SWIFTY program didn't start up then. Each squadron was allowed to develop
• 37:47
  their own training continuum.
• 37:49
  Yeah. and and it varied greatly i would say
• 37:52
  the argonauts weren't aces of
• 37:54
  the base but they were very good in the foundational stuff but
• 37:58
  but obviously top gun and the introduction of
• 38:01
  the swifty program transformed training and
• 38:06
  standardization in naval aviation unlike anything past prior and i suspect future
• 38:12
  so what kind of uh combat sortie memory from the first Gulf War do you have
• 38:20
  any any significant was it daytime nighttime,
• 38:24
  hey by the way what ship were you flying off of so on that one we were on the Nimitz.
• 38:31
  Pretty certain we were on the Nimitz and you know I was just hanging on the
• 38:39
  wings you know and they were they were using me you know to to to support missions
• 38:45
  but I never got any of the great missions obviously, and I wouldn't expect to.
• 38:49
  And they probably didn't want me sticking my nose at the dirt and dropping ordnance.
• 38:53
  But I do remember sitting in caps, you know, and flying a lot of cap missions
• 38:58
  and everything else and doing a lot of tanker missions.
• 39:01
  I don't think it might have been my first deployment.
• 39:07
  But, you know, in naval aviation, you know, there's certain things that you
• 39:12
  need to do exceedingly well.
• 39:13
  And landing on an aircraft is one of them. And there is this really cool system
• 39:18
  in place, you know, wherein they grade every single landing that you come aboard the carrier.
• 39:24
  And I know you guys know this, but you're graded on glide slope control,
• 39:28
  airspeed control, lineup control.
• 39:30
  And then they and it's like a report card and it's a 4.0 scale.
• 39:35
  And every you
• 39:38
  know 20 to 30 landings they have you know
• 39:41
  folks will fall as we we beat each other up but then they also recognize the
• 39:45
  best pilots behind the ship and I struggled my first at sea period but I committed
• 39:52
  myself to to doing pretty darn well and I remember I'm I'm a JO my first tour,
• 40:00
  my second deployment, and I'm the number one aviator in the air wing for landings.
• 40:07
  And all I have to do, I have one more mission to go, and I'm going to be the
• 40:11
  top hook for the entire air wing as a Lieutenant JG.
• 40:15
  And I'm like, whoa, I have arrived.
• 40:18
  And it was two choices. I'm either going out and landing at 11 o'clock at night,
• 40:25
  or I'm going out for the pinky recovery.
• 40:27
  Pinky recovery means that you have a horizon out there so you've got all your
• 40:31
  visual cues that you need.
• 40:33
  And I ended up launching on the pinky recovery I'm
• 40:36
  like yes soloed under a lucky star and I'm coming down and it couldn't be a
• 40:43
  more perfect night and I boltered and I'm like wow that that's not cool and
• 40:48
  I come back around but I'm like you're still in the hunt stick with it to a
• 40:53
  long story short I ended up boltering uh.
• 40:57
  Four or five times. I got waved off three times. I hit the tanker three times.
• 41:03
  We canceled missions into Iraq because I couldn't get aboard.
• 41:09
  That was your night in the barrel.
• 41:12
  Oh, I mean, it was like the worst. And I finally land and everybody's like, great job, Worm.
• 41:20
  And i'm like no no that wasn't a great job and i mean i went absolutely from
• 41:26
  rocket one all the way to rocket 23 in one night and that rocked my world.
• 41:36
  For our non-aviators bolters when the hook misses the wires and you go around so,
• 41:43
  oh yeah and that's man talk about a
• 41:46
  come down that that that back into the ship the
• 41:50
  very first wire is the number one wire that's 200 feet down and then i want
• 41:54
  to say it's every 120 feet or so that you get the second wire third wire and
• 41:59
  fourth wire so you're landing at 170 miles an hour in a space of 400 feet,
• 42:08
  and it's not stable.
• 42:11
  It's not static. The boat's moving, so you've got to work with your lineup,
• 42:15
  and then it's moving through the water glide slope.
• 42:18
  It is a cool, neat experience.
• 42:23
  You never have to flare. You've got four wires. How hard can it be? Right.
• 42:27
  According to those gringos, how hard could it be? Come on. Anybody talking to you? How hard can it be?
• 42:34
  Oh man that's just brutal yeah all right quick question from one of our listeners
• 42:39
  simsedlo was the were the argonauts the first ones to get the hornet with the
• 42:43
  flare pretty close if not the first okay he's absolutely right i wasn't certain
• 42:49
  if the blue diamonds got it before us but we were the the air wing to deploy with the flare first.
• 42:55
  Okay. And that's your, for the non-aviators, forward-looking infrared,
• 42:59
  which is how you see at night without NVGs. Yeah.
• 43:03
  All right. Very cool.
• 43:07
  So, well, what else notable? Came back from the war, two babies at home?
• 43:12
  At that time, yeah, we have two babies at home. We ended up with three,
• 43:16
  but yeah, at that time it was just the two babies.
• 43:21
  And went on to be an instructor pilot at
• 43:25
  vfa 125 i was oh up a little more yeah i was the night vision goggle phase head
• 43:33
  and the lso phase head rushed the team during that time frame that that's like
• 43:38
  the quintessential time to rush the blue angels okay so so with the blue angel experience,
• 43:45
  you have to have a certain amount of hours and a certain amount of street credentials
• 43:49
  before you can apply to the team.
• 43:51
  And then you apply to the team and then you follow the team around for two to
• 43:56
  four air shows and get to know the team and they get to know you.
• 44:01
  If you're lucky enough, you get invited down to Pensacola and go through the interview process.
• 44:09
  My first year i interviewed
• 44:13
  and got a call and and i didn't have the flight time didn't expect anything
• 44:17
  of it i rushed the team a second year and i get invited down to finalist week
• 44:23
  and and i'm the only one at vfa 125 at this time to get invited down to finalist
• 44:28
  week and i'm over the moon excited.
• 44:31
  And I spent a ton of time preparing for that interview.
• 44:36
  Mama and I would sit up in bed at night till 12, one o'clock at night,
• 44:41
  just firing questions and answering it.
• 44:43
  She's a little bit softer than I am. So I would have to kind of beef up some
• 44:48
  of her statements, you know, but I thought we, we prepared extremely well.
• 44:53
  We go down to, I'm sorry. Right.
• 44:56
  Nice. Sorry, you didn't mean to interrupt you. It was a shared experience.
• 45:00
  Right. And so we go down to Pensacola and you hang out with the team and you
• 45:05
  all go into individual interviews.
• 45:08
  And I walked into that interview and every question they asked to a certain
• 45:14
  degree, Becky and I had already reviewed. And I come out of that thinking.
• 45:20
  I got this, you know, and there are some really good dudes in the room. No, I don't know.
• 45:25
  Yeah, didn't happen. But I'm thinking, wow, I nailed that.
• 45:31
  And I walk out of there. The rest of the week goes pretty well.
• 45:35
  You hang out with their families and stuff. You go down to water ski.
• 45:39
  It's kind of like the bikini contest.
• 45:41
  And then Friday comes around and they call the team, you know,
• 45:45
  the guys that make it. And I get my call.
• 45:47
  And so a little bit later in the day. and they're like hey Wolfie really
• 45:50
  appreciate you trying out sorry you didn't make it good luck and
• 45:53
  hangs up and like what what do you
• 45:57
  guys need me to replay the tape that interview was awesome
• 46:01
  yeah and doggone it how could you not pick me and so we actually go away and
• 46:10
  and and I mean you got to remember naval aviation is something that was such
• 46:15
  a gift to me because I I never could have imagined being a part of it.
• 46:19
  And a lot of that driving factor was the Blue Angels.
• 46:22
  And I got invited to come down to finalist week and I didn't close the deal and it broke my heart.
• 46:30
  And so we took a year off and we're driving on base.
• 46:34
  Now I'm in CAG LSO on the JFK and we're driving on Oceana.
• 46:39
  My son, who at the time was, I want to say 10 years old, he goes,
• 46:42
  hey, dad, you know, the Blue Angels are in town. There's signs and pictures.
• 46:46
  What's going on with the Blue Ainge? I said, well, buddy, they don't want me,
• 46:49
  so I'm doing other things with my career.
• 46:51
  And he looks at me, he goes, well, Dad, sounds like you're quitting.
• 46:55
  You tell me never to quit. And I'm like, oh, boy.
• 46:59
  Shut up. Right? Who invited you on this car ride? You know?
• 47:05
  And I said, well, you know, buddy, for whatever reason, I didn't fit in.
• 47:09
  I don't know why, and I will never know why. He goes, but can you try again?
• 47:13
  And I said, I could, but it probably wouldn't work out.
• 47:16
  And he goes, well, Dad, I think you should try out again. I go home to Mama Bear.
• 47:22
  I go and ask her and say, Dave, it wrecked you. I said, I know, honey, but I got to try.
• 47:28
  And she goes, go ahead. You know, you have my support. I go down without question
• 47:33
  the worst interview in the history of the world.
• 47:36
  I mean, it just stopped me.
• 47:39
  And I get the call on Friday. Did they ask you about cocaine and marijuana or anything? No, no.
• 47:46
  No, it was a couple other very sensitive personal issues that came up. Sure, yeah.
• 47:51
  You know, I'm like, you know, at least they know who I am because they didn't
• 47:54
  know who I was two years prior because I was trying to match the image.
• 47:59
  And I got picked up for the team.
• 48:02
  Wow, that's funny. And I wasn't lawman. You know, I mean, lawman walks into
• 48:06
  any organization anywhere on the planet and everybody's like, what do you need?
• 48:12
  Right. You got it. You know, he's just that kind of guy. Right.
• 48:16
  Intake. I think I think you had intake on intake.
• 48:20
  I'm kind of a knuckle dragger, you know, I don't belong here. So.
• 48:26
  That's fantastic. So although and I'll share this without going without going
• 48:31
  into any detail about it. And we won't ask you to tell it because we just won't.
• 48:36
  But lawman shared with me that Dino told him that you, you know,
• 48:41
  they, they said you were a cop, right? Yeah.
• 48:43
  And they said to lawman, well, tell us something funny about being an Arizona
• 48:46
  state trooper. And he told his funny story and we, we made him tell it to us.
• 48:51
  But Dino said to lawman that you told the funniest joke ever when they said,
• 48:55
  yeah, tell us a funny joke.
• 48:57
  So you did. Yeah. You did.
• 49:01
  And then, yeah. And you made them all laugh. So that was, yeah. So.
• 49:06
  High praise. And we talked about it earlier today and you didn't remember it.
• 49:09
  So you won't even, I won't try to strain your memory.
• 49:12
  Well, no, I remember it and I won't bring it up. Well, there you go. Okay.
• 49:18
  We'll leave it at that. So what year was that, Wolfie?
• 49:22
  What year? 96, 97? So 97 was the bad interview. Okay. Okay.
• 49:29
  Yeah. So you were on the team 98, 99, and 2000.
• 49:33
  Was it a three-year tour or two? So two years for the demo pilots with the exception
• 49:38
  of the number seven pilot.
• 49:42
  Yeah. Number seven typically fleets up to the solo pilot.
• 49:46
  And I want to go on record. You know, I mean, I know the people that listen
• 49:52
  to this podcast are dying to know, you know, what is harder?
• 49:58
  Being a diamond pilot or a solo pilot you know and the solo pilots are going
• 50:02
  to tell you oh yeah you know i i think there's a term term that they use.
• 50:11
  Six hate them two million love
• 50:14
  them you know meaning all the fans love the solo
• 50:17
  pilots but the diamond guys hate them but the
• 50:20
  fact of the matter is this the diamond when you
• 50:23
  look at the diamond you think defense it's a group
• 50:26
  of people pushing on the sled in the same direction and
• 50:29
  everything else and what wins super bowls defense baby
• 50:34
  yeah yeah all the time so i'm more than happy to be a defensive lineman on the
• 50:40
  blue angels and allowing the solo pilots we call them mutton jeff or the piston
• 50:44
  brothers to go out and have fun and put noise over the crowd well pull limiter You know, really,
• 50:50
  all the Solo brothers do is keep them entertained until the diamond comes back. There it is. Right?
• 50:57
  Yep. Who is that? Is that...
• 51:01
  Couldn't tell you. So he's got, Sticks has a picture up on now that is shot
• 51:06
  in the cockpit of the number three.
• 51:08
  Yeah. Looking over at Boston number two.
• 51:11
  Yeah, I'm trying to think who that is. We're trying to figure out who that is.
• 51:15
  Fig, was that too early reference to the Super Bowl? Asking for a friend. Sorry, dude.
• 51:22
  I don't know why you had to go there.
• 51:26
  I live in, I'm a Kansas City Chiefs fan. Wolfie.
• 51:30
  As was i i started out in the first two quarters in red yeah quickly jumped to green in the halftime,
• 51:38
  well i i basically live in kansas city so you
• 51:41
  know we're i mean it's it's in it yeah we were in it and that's it was hard
• 51:45
  to watch i don't talk about it anymore let's go back to it let's go back to
• 51:48
  uh yeah so so that was in uh 97 so 97 98 98 99 i'm sorry i was in the demo in 98 99 yeah Okay,
• 51:59
  so the opening bell there, the opening story was in your first year on the team, on the diamond.
• 52:08
  Yeah. There they are. There they are. Yeah.
• 52:13
  Yeah, I'm on the right side of that photo there. Much skinnier and way more hair.
• 52:19
  So were you wolfy then? Because you said warm a couple times.
• 52:23
  Yeah, so I started out as warm but came into being as wolfy.
• 52:29
  Started out as Wolf Boy, but it was too long to say on the radio,
• 52:32
  so they truncated it to Wolfie.
• 52:35
  Okay. All right. What's the story behind that? Is that a good story? How we got there?
• 52:38
  You know, it's not a bad story. Okay. You know, and you have editorial rights, right? Right.
• 52:46
  We want to hear it. We love it. The call sign stories are some of the best.
• 52:50
  We actually had a marine aviator on who wrote a book, What's Your Call Sign?
• 52:54
  And had some fantastic stories. so yeah yeah i mean i wish mine was a whole
• 52:59
  lot better but so becky came to visit me in singapore,
• 53:04
  and you know we hadn't seen each other for five months
• 53:07
  and she came to the pier we
• 53:10
  hugged we went straight back to the hotel room and i think we buried
• 53:13
  ourselves in the hotel room for about 12 hours and i
• 53:16
  just had my way with her and you know it got
• 53:19
  a little loud and obnoxious and i walk out
• 53:22
  to go grab some food and my skipper's in the state in the hotel room right next
• 53:27
  to me and he looks at me and he gives me a way to go you know i'm like so embarrassed you know but,
• 53:40
  a man's got to do what a man's got to do and so we go back to the ship and he explains in.
• 53:47
  Excruciating detail. Oh no.
• 53:49
  You know about what happened and what he heard. Oh no. And
• 53:52
  so it required a new call sign and everybody knows you know in the animal kingdom
• 53:58
  the most dominant sexually aggressive animal in the wild kingdom is the alpha.
• 54:03
  Wolf and that was too cool of a call sign so they said wolf boy and and then
• 54:08
  that stayed for a little while and then truncated to wolfie.
• 54:11
  So that's story number one i'll let
• 54:14
  you pick the second the second one is we're the last
• 54:17
  carrier pulling into subic bay uh there's a
• 54:20
  water basketball game going on and i get picked first
• 54:23
  i'm i'm i'm 38 years old and i get picked
• 54:25
  first i'm so excited you know i'm still a little kid
• 54:28
  at heart who doesn't want to get picked first right i'm with i'll
• 54:32
  take the guy with the sweater on and and
• 54:35
  the reason being is i'm furrier than than
• 54:38
  the average tacky or bear and so i always
• 54:42
  use the sexually dominant one as the one
• 54:45
  that's intriguing and everything i just carry
• 54:49
  way too much fur on my back and i had to have some type
• 54:51
  of animal linkage to my call sign perfect i
• 54:56
  love it not the best but yeah hey that's
• 54:59
  all good what was uh exactly no that's
• 55:02
  perfect well i'll tell you what we believe it or not we've been going at this
• 55:05
  for 50 minutes or so see feels like five yeah so let's let's take just a moment
• 55:12
  and say thank you to the fine folks who help bring these shows to you and we'll
• 55:17
  circle back on more more call sign and wild stuff and and hear about the blues.
• 55:24
  Hey, Fick. So, there I was. Oh, here we go.
• 55:30
  Flying high, thinking I had my retirement strategy all lined up.
• 55:35
  Then I learned the hard way how quickly turbulence can shake that plan up.
• 55:40
  Let's face it, folks. Planning for retirement is a lot like flying IFR in a storm.
• 55:45
  Without the right instruments, if you're just one degree off course,
• 55:49
  before you know it, you're way off course.
• 55:52
  That's where HSI Wealth Strategies comes in. HSI, which stands for Horizontal
• 55:58
  Situation Indicator, that's the trusty gauge in your cockpit that keeps you
• 56:02
  on course, just like their team keeps you on course for a secure retirement.
• 56:07
  And the folks at HSI know a thing or two about the cockpit.
• 56:10
  These aren't your average wealth advisors. They're also pilots, just like us.
• 56:15
  Air guard and civil aviators who don't just fly the line, they now guide the bottom line.
• 56:21
  Plus, they're seasoned at working with airline professionals,
• 56:24
  high net worth individuals, and business owners to ensure financial plans that
• 56:27
  can withstand any headwind. Absolutely.
• 56:30
  And they know the ins and outs of the airline retirement plans,
• 56:32
  like nobody else. from maximizing your accumulation while you're earning those
• 56:36
  high-altitude salaries to minimizing your tax liabilities when it's time to
• 56:41
  pull back on the throttle.
• 56:42
  Because let's face it, taxes and inflation are like headwinds working against
• 56:47
  your glide path to a smooth retirement.
• 56:49
  Don't fall into the trap of conventional wisdom when it comes to retirement planning.
• 56:54
  That kind of advice is like asking someone who's never flown to land the plane
• 56:58
  for you. We, as pilots, have unique challenges, and HSI gets that.
• 57:04
  They know how to help you avoid a hard landing on your financial future.
• 57:08
  And let's talk about the golden rule of pilot retirement.
• 57:11
  Hey, Fig, how does a pilot make a million bucks in his retirement account?
• 57:16
  Well, he starts with $2 million and manages it himself for six months.
• 57:22
  Bingo. And sadly, I've seen that happen.
• 57:26
  Oh, dude. So true. That's why you've got to get a team in your corner who actually
• 57:33
  knows what they're doing.
• 57:34
  And with HSI, you're not only getting financial advisors, you're getting fellow
• 57:38
  pilots who still fly, who know exactly what it's like to be in your seat.
• 57:42
  HSI can save you serious money. On average, they're fining their clients a million
• 57:46
  to a million and a half dollars just by making a few course corrections.
• 57:50
  Imagine what a little trim and rudder input could do for your retirement account.
• 57:54
  So whether you're in the thick of your earning years or just about ready to
• 57:57
  enjoy your time in the jump seat, HSI Wealth Strategies has your six.
• 58:02
  Don't wait until you're ready to make your approach to realize you're off course.
• 58:06
  Give HSI a call and see how much they can help you save. Because folks,
• 58:10
  when it comes to retirement, you only get one approach.
• 58:12
  Make sure it's on GlidePath. To get your extra million or so in retirement,
• 58:17
  email robert.walling at nm.com.
• 58:21
  That's robert.walling at nm, that's NovemberMike, dot com.
• 58:28
  Or call 214-538-7030. That's 214-538-7030 to get started on your path to wealth and retirement today.
• 58:41
  Remember 214-538-7030. Think of it as 214-JET-7030 to keep you flying high in retirement.
• 58:51
  HSI Wealth Strategies, guiding pilots on and off the runway to a smooth landing in retirement. Boom.
• 59:01
  Okay folks i admit it a history nerd i love it i majored in it and i learned
• 59:06
  to love it by listening to people who made it real for me and this podcast that
• 59:11
  i'm going to tell you about will do that for you,
• 59:14
  If you love history, especially the real stories from those who lived it,
• 59:18
  you won't want to miss this.
• 59:20
  Reading through a variety of memoirs, his father's, his father's comrades,
• 59:25
  along with those who have been sent to him by listeners, Paul Cheel has uncovered
• 59:32
  a rich source of previously unpublished histories from the men and women who
• 59:36
  were there, who fought the ultimate fight for freedom in the 20th century.
• 59:41
  Take, for example, the memoir of Tom Woods, captain of the ship that rescued
• 59:45
  Paul's dad from the beaches of Dunkirk, a story of courage, chaos,
• 59:50
  and survival that brings history to life in a way that no textbook ever could.
• 59:55
  If you're looking for a great Second World War podcast, check out the Fighting
• 59:59
  Through World War II Memoirs podcast hosted by Paul Cheel, the son of a British D-Day veteran.
• 1:00:05
  It's got Lanks, Tanks, and Yanks, Brits and Aussies, Omaha, Gold,
• 1:00:10
  Snipers, Germans, Japanese, and a whole lot more.
• 1:00:14
  The show visits Dunkirk, North Africa, Sicily, Italy, D-Day,
• 1:00:19
  Germany, the Pacific War, and beyond.
• 1:00:22
  You'll hear family stories, memoirs, and interviews with veterans from all the
• 1:00:27
  countries and all the forces.
• 1:00:28
  It's all great unpublished history and it's
• 1:00:31
  the top of the charts on apple and spotify and
• 1:00:34
  more check it out at fighting through podcast.co.uk that's fighting through
• 1:00:40
  podcast.co.uk or just search ww2 in your favorite podcast player and if you
• 1:00:48
  want more ask chat gpt or google gemini for a review wow,
• 1:00:55
  That's the Fighting Through World War II Memoirs podcast, where history isn't just told, it's lived.
• 1:01:05
  All right. Thank you very much, HSI Wealth Strategies and Robbie Walling.
• 1:01:10
  And that podcast is pretty cool. Give it a listen if you like history.
• 1:01:13
  Another history major on here with me. Woo-hoo! Loving it.
• 1:01:20
  Not like you, though.
• 1:01:23
  I've actually learned to love it more since graduation from college.
• 1:01:27
  There's another one I listened to, Hardcore History.
• 1:01:31
  That guy makes it fun. I can't think of his name off the top of my head,
• 1:01:34
  but Hardcore History is another good podcast.
• 1:01:37
  All right, so where were we? All right, so was it Singapore?
• 1:01:42
  Yeah. Let's get back to the blues. That's where we were.
• 1:01:46
  So you make the team. what was that transition like what was the biggest surprise
• 1:01:50
  about flying with the blues that you didn't realize i mean obviously you've
• 1:01:56
  got a good idea what it's going to be like,
• 1:01:59
  i mean do you really yeah you really have no idea how difficult it is.
• 1:02:08
  You know if if if you went
• 1:02:12
  to flight school and you got frontline fighters and
• 1:02:15
  you're you're flying tactical events you've been
• 1:02:19
  affirmed throughout your career that you're obviously
• 1:02:22
  gifted and i'm not saying i'm not saying
• 1:02:25
  me please i'm mistaken i'm saying but just if you
• 1:02:28
  got through it you know just such a small
• 1:02:31
  population base gets through it so it so it gives you some confidence
• 1:02:34
  right and yeah you go to the team
• 1:02:37
  and the rigidity
• 1:02:41
  of making the blue angel experience present
• 1:02:45
  well to the public is something
• 1:02:50
  you cannot prepare for you cannot I
• 1:02:52
  mean you just have no idea you know
• 1:02:56
  and and your desire to
• 1:02:59
  achieve that level of excellence
• 1:03:02
  is is beyond comparing
• 1:03:05
  anything you've ever done before you know and you're constantly
• 1:03:10
  feeling like oh I'm letting the team down oh i'm not living up to the standard
• 1:03:16
  i mean it is it is everything you know to to i mean this is going to sound silly
• 1:03:21
  but if if i was seen off base without a collared shirt on.
• 1:03:28
  And we briefed the next day and i didn't brief bring up hey i was out out you
• 1:03:35
  know out in town without a collared shirt on someone probably saw me and they're
• 1:03:41
  going to bring it up because i'm going to pay a fine for that, just a $5 fine.
• 1:03:46
  And so every time you deviate from the Blue Angel expectation,
• 1:03:50
  especially as you're a newbie, there's a $5 fine.
• 1:03:55
  And you go to San Francisco.
• 1:03:58
  And I want to say I racked up close to $345 in fines. Oh, my gosh.
• 1:04:07
  Because my glasses were on when the bosses were off.
• 1:04:10
  I had my Sharpie pen in the wrong pocket. I took a bite of something when the
• 1:04:15
  boss hadn't already started, whatever it is.
• 1:04:18
  And I was I was on the totem pole.
• 1:04:22
  I had exceeded expectations at three hundred forty five dollars.
• 1:04:27
  And this is just the first day, huh?
• 1:04:30
  Exactly. So, you know, it is so much more than I could have ever imagined.
• 1:04:37
  You know and it was there there's
• 1:04:41
  a couple truly wonderful life
• 1:04:44
  lessons that i learned when i was on the team number one nothing
• 1:04:48
  is ever as good as you make it into your mind you know that that dream that
• 1:04:53
  perspective your hope it it's it's not as great as you think it's going to be
• 1:04:59
  but but But it's not as bad as as you think it's going to be,
• 1:05:06
  you know, so it's somewhere in between.
• 1:05:08
  And the reason why I say that is we lost two great naval aviators when I was
• 1:05:14
  on the team in both Falling and Tater.
• 1:05:20
  And Kieran O'Connor, you know, he was the number three pilot.
• 1:05:24
  I'm the number four pilot.
• 1:05:26
  They ended up crashing three weeks before the end of season.
• 1:05:31
  And absolute tragedy, you know.
• 1:05:35
  That's some of the darkest days of my naval aviation career.
• 1:05:39
  But they were the brightest days, too, because you saw the team,
• 1:05:42
  past, present, and future, rally around and send these guys off like the heroes they were.
• 1:05:49
  And that was, you know, so I love that part of the team.
• 1:05:56
  Yeah. Where was that crash?
• 1:05:58
  So that was in i want to say valdosta georgia georgia
• 1:06:02
  okay yeah and uh so what had happened was they they just basically flew into
• 1:06:07
  the ground and i remember we're we're setting up for the show site and you'd
• 1:06:11
  go you have this template of the blue angel demonstration and it fits over every
• 1:06:17
  single air show but we got to get our checkpoints.
• 1:06:20
  And I remember I'm approaching the 90, which is 90 degrees off the center line heading.
• 1:06:25
  And I went through a flock of birds and it was significant. And I just called
• 1:06:30
  the tater, say, hey, tater, watch it. Lots of birds at the 90.
• 1:06:33
  I roll out. I set my stopwatch, getting ready to run my line.
• 1:06:37
  And then I just heard this blood curdling call from Doc.
• 1:06:41
  Knock it off. Knock it off. Knock it off.
• 1:06:44
  And I look and I look up. I look to my side. I don't see anybody.
• 1:06:48
  So I just start pulling up because I don't know what the heck's happening.
• 1:06:50
  I look over my shoulder and there's just this huge black billowing smoke.
• 1:06:54
  Oh, shit. And what had happened was their Lao on the wingtip caught a tree and
• 1:07:03
  it pulled them into the dirt.
• 1:07:05
  Had they been 10 feet north, east, west, whatever the orientation was,
• 1:07:11
  we wouldn't be talking about them in this vein.
• 1:07:15
  So they were in a two-seater? Yeah. So what happens is when you when you become
• 1:07:20
  when you get picked for the team, the current member in the position that you're
• 1:07:26
  going to. So you get picked for the team. You'll travel with the team.
• 1:07:28
  Then they'll decide what position you're going to.
• 1:07:31
  And then and then you fly in the trunk in the backseat of that position just
• 1:07:36
  to get some introduction to it.
• 1:07:38
  And you'll fly with the solo pilots. OK.
• 1:07:41
  And so that's what they were doing. Tater was taking bone one one side note. and the intensity.
• 1:07:49
  Of the Blue Angel experience. Kevin Colling, he rushed the team and he was the
• 1:07:56
  only guy that anyone could remember in the history that,
• 1:08:00
  in our short history, there's two teams, three teams involved in this,
• 1:08:04
  where it was a unanimous decision to bring him down to Pensacola for interview.
• 1:08:09
  And, you know, you needed just a preponderance of the people saying, yeah, bring him down.
• 1:08:13
  But, but, but Kevin had everyone say, yeah, bring him down.
• 1:08:18
  And so he comes into the interview and, you know, I alluded to the fact that
• 1:08:23
  I've given two of the best interviews in the history of the world.
• 1:08:26
  I was joking. Right.
• 1:08:29
  100% did. I mean, when you, when you listen to him and the way he answered questions
• 1:08:34
  and the way he talked about his dad, you're like,
• 1:08:40
  perfect and he walks out and 100
• 1:08:44
  so so there's you know the demo
• 1:08:47
  pilots and everybody else i'm convinced and everybody else is convinced he's
• 1:08:52
  on the team and so we go through the interviews and and we're we're we're assessing
• 1:08:57
  who's on the team we get to to kevin and everybody's like thumbs up thumbs up
• 1:09:01
  one person raises their hand said well i'm not certain everybody's like,
• 1:09:05
  do we need to replay that tape that possible what are you smoking.
• 1:09:14
  And and and that person and i'm being
• 1:09:17
  you know protective because because because i have to be says did did none of
• 1:09:22
  you see his back pocket and we're like no what are you talking about yeah his
• 1:09:27
  back pocket wasn't buttoned and we're like no and so a couple guys went out
• 1:09:33
  there and looked and He said, yeah, it wasn't buttoned.
• 1:09:36
  And he was not invited to join the team that year. He came back and made it the second year.
• 1:09:43
  But when you think about the level of attention that was, you know,
• 1:09:49
  it's just still this day amazes me.
• 1:09:53
  And, you know, all Blue Angels out there, if I've if I've, you know,
• 1:09:57
  released any secret thoughts, I apologize.
• 1:10:00
  But I do think it's a wonderful example of, you know, the commitment of the
• 1:10:05
  team and and their commitment to excellence. It is unwavering 24-7.
• 1:10:12
  Well that's that's pretty apparent it is
• 1:10:14
  very apparent so hardest
• 1:10:18
  hardest thing about so we you
• 1:10:21
  know we we got we got kind of unvarnished answer
• 1:10:24
  from lawman hardest thing about well what
• 1:10:28
  what am i trying to say repeat not the hardest thing but best
• 1:10:31
  part about being on the blue angels in the is in the worst part about being
• 1:10:35
  on the blue angels well i mean the obvious worst is easy for me to answer losing
• 1:10:40
  tater and bone was hard and i don't think that was the intent of your question
• 1:10:44
  and this dialogue the intent of that question i think is what was the you know.
• 1:10:49
  What was the most challenging part of it and
• 1:10:52
  you know it's funny and
• 1:10:55
  and i think that that that i've shown in in
• 1:10:58
  in my conversation i tend to operate a
• 1:11:01
  little bit on the emotional side you know there's there there's
• 1:11:04
  people that operate on the analytical side oh yeah
• 1:11:07
  and i tend to operate on the emotional
• 1:11:10
  side and one of the things that was
• 1:11:13
  very difficult for me boss dong gave us
• 1:11:16
  a book called the seven habits of highly affected people
• 1:11:19
  and i know a whole bunch of people have read it and they all
• 1:11:21
  say and the book says you know you're you're
• 1:11:25
  sitting in in in a funeral and your
• 1:11:28
  friends are there and everything else and you walk up to the casket
• 1:11:31
  and you realize it's you and and and
• 1:11:34
  and he wants you to spend some time writing about you
• 1:11:37
  know what does your friends say about you what do your colleagues say
• 1:11:40
  to you what do your family say about you and put
• 1:11:44
  that away and then go back and revisit it and
• 1:11:47
  when you revisit it that's your
• 1:11:50
  life goals and if if you're doing them awesome
• 1:11:53
  if you're not you need to get back on track and and
• 1:11:56
  if you're doing something in violation of that hey maybe
• 1:11:59
  you need to to couch it and as
• 1:12:03
  much as i wanted to be a blue angel and i
• 1:12:06
  hungered for it not a single person in the
• 1:12:09
  obituaries that i wrote for me said anything about my blue angel experience
• 1:12:13
  it was all about being a dad it was all about being a good husband a faithful.
• 1:12:19
  Friend an honorable person and i gotta be honest with you i struggled with that
• 1:12:24
  a little bit to reconcile it, you know?
• 1:12:27
  Wherein I'm doing something and it's hard work and I'm gone all the time and
• 1:12:33
  I'm putting mama bear through emotional stress.
• 1:12:37
  Totally selfishly to do something that I want to do. So I was conflicted there.
• 1:12:41
  The best thing about it, though, is that level of excellence.
• 1:12:48
  They do a great job of ramping you up. They do a horrible job of putting you
• 1:12:53
  back into the fleet, you know, go through detox, whatever it is.
• 1:12:57
  So you go in there and you're really amped up.
• 1:12:59
  But I do think it gave me this commitment to
• 1:13:03
  follow through work hard commit and
• 1:13:07
  don't let your teammates down and and that's something that
• 1:13:10
  continues almost still to
• 1:13:13
  this day that i get the great privilege to to to kind of leverage and pull upon
• 1:13:18
  i hope that makes sense well it does and i i just want to i want to put a little
• 1:13:22
  i'm going to ask it just a slightly different way okay because i i think you
• 1:13:26
  said this but i just want to make sure i heard it right after you walked out
• 1:13:30
  the door there in Pensacola for that as the last,
• 1:13:33
  as the last time, and you went on to your next fleet assignment every from that
• 1:13:39
  day on you, you brought a different level of excellence than,
• 1:13:43
  or you, you carry that expectation with you.
• 1:13:50
  100%. Okay. And you know, I think there's a, I'm thankful for that,
• 1:13:56
  you know, and, And I've carried it in the civilian sector and elsewhere.
• 1:14:02
  But also, it's not the Blue Angels out here in the everyday world.
• 1:14:08
  And I want to kind of, you know, build that back in.
• 1:14:11
  And it's never going to happen. I remember going back to the fleet and they're
• 1:14:15
  like, dude, settle down. I'm like, no, we've got to do it this way.
• 1:14:20
  Right. but the professionals that
• 1:14:23
  you're around and the excellence the the standards that are
• 1:14:26
  that are strived for i mean you wonder
• 1:14:29
  why i i could get why you wonder why why doesn't everyone
• 1:14:32
  he wanted to be this way the lawman tells the story
• 1:14:34
  of you know the first time he walked out to a fleet jet after being
• 1:14:37
  on the blues there's like a 14 inch panel missing
• 1:14:40
  off the side of the airplane it's like no one
• 1:14:44
  pre-flighted my jet what the hell you know
• 1:14:47
  yeah but you and you talked about
• 1:14:50
  not being not being prepared you know it's almost
• 1:14:52
  like don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out even though once a
• 1:14:55
  blue always a blue is my understanding it was jungle jim ross that told me they're
• 1:15:01
  pretty much waiting there with wire clippers as you back out of your space for
• 1:15:04
  the last time to take your name off the off your parking spot so this yeah no you're out see,
• 1:15:12
  you know you're like guy this is kind of final isn't it you know yeah hey all
• 1:15:18
  right wolfie wolfie lawman gave
• 1:15:21
  us a couple of pranks that the uh the team played on him when he was new,
• 1:15:26
  one of which was the first time he was going to put on the blue suit they they
• 1:15:30
  put like 400 staples yeah so what what what kind of what kind of pranks did you suffer.
• 1:15:37
  You know, I got to be honest with you. I think generally speaking,
• 1:15:40
  it was relatively calm and benign for me and Weeds and our team.
• 1:15:47
  But I do know that the newbies behind us, you know, you would get a rental car, right?
• 1:15:54
  And the pilots would be kludged together based on, you know,
• 1:15:58
  one and two, three and four, five and six, you know, and they would be in their
• 1:16:02
  car together. And the newbies would have a car.
• 1:16:04
  And I remember we were in, I want to say Saline, Kansas.
• 1:16:08
  And so it's kind of, you know, farming and cattle and everything else.
• 1:16:13
  And we had basically taken a bunch of hay bales and stuffed it in all the newbie cars.
• 1:16:20
  And this happened about 10 o'clock at night. And they had to turn in the cars
• 1:16:25
  clean, ready to return to the rent-a-car place.
• 1:16:28
  So they had to go and get the cars cleaned out, vacuumed out and everything else.
• 1:16:32
  And I guaranteed if they got an hour of sleep that night, I'd be surprised. Nice. Oh, man.
• 1:16:40
  What was the other one? Oh, because he was the Marine on the team,
• 1:16:43
  they kept doing the – Oh, yeah.
• 1:16:45
  Doing the march down. Yeah, calling left on the wrong foot. Yeah.
• 1:16:50
  Damn it, Marine, why are you out of step? You're the only one that's not in step. Yeah.
• 1:16:56
  Yeah. So. What did you – all right, so what did the rest of your Naval career
• 1:17:01
  look like? after you left the Blues?
• 1:17:03
  So I had the great privilege of being the commanding officer of VFA by God 87,
• 1:17:09
  the Golden Warriors out of Oceana,
• 1:17:12
  Timbo Keating's former squadron, a squadron that had been in existence for like
• 1:17:17
  37, 38 years before I took over.
• 1:17:20
  And never once had they won the battle E.
• 1:17:24
  And all the COs and all the changes of command saying,
• 1:17:27
  hey you know hey you know whatever co
• 1:17:30
  it is you know fence you know spanky we
• 1:17:32
  never won the battle it's like yeah we know and i
• 1:17:35
  i committed wholeheartedly to it and i took out
• 1:17:38
  the instructions i made sure that everybody read the instruction we were fortunate
• 1:17:42
  enough to win the battle e times two not because anything dave silky did but
• 1:17:46
  everything what fence set me up for and then what spanky backed me up on so
• 1:17:52
  that that was a really cool life experience leaving the blue I mean, I'm sorry.
• 1:17:58
  VF 87. Prior to that, coming out of the blues, I got to work at Dev Group.
• 1:18:02
  I got to deploy with the teams to Afghanistan and work there,
• 1:18:07
  which was a very humbling experience.
• 1:18:09
  And then I went to Washington, D.C., National War College.
• 1:18:13
  I came out of there and had the longest job title in the world.
• 1:18:17
  I was the executive assistant to the executive secretary for the Secretary of Defense.
• 1:18:23
  And so what that meant was, yeah, I know. Right.
• 1:18:27
  What the hell? Every department. So Air Force, Navy,
• 1:18:31
  Marines and and Air Force, Navy, Marines and Army had a representative that
• 1:18:36
  basically QC'd all the paperwork going into the executive secretary before it
• 1:18:41
  went into SecDef's office.
• 1:18:43
  And so I was one of those guys.
• 1:18:45
  But then there was a dust up and the executive secretary left and the guy that
• 1:18:49
  was supposed to come couldn't make it.
• 1:18:51
  So they grabbed me and put me in the seat. So it's a three star civilian equivalent. I'm an old five.
• 1:18:57
  Oh, my God. And I've got senior Navy officials saying, Dave,
• 1:19:01
  this needs to get into the secretary.
• 1:19:03
  I said, well, it doesn't have the appropriate code, so it's not going in.
• 1:19:08
  And so that was a really neat life experience, you know, seeing Condoleezza
• 1:19:13
  Rice walking in the office and saying hi to everybody by name was just amazing. Did that tour.
• 1:19:21
  Then I got picked up for the air wing command job and had CAG-2 on board the
• 1:19:26
  Abraham Lincoln with Sarge.
• 1:19:28
  Sarge Alexander and Shoe Shoemaker is our strike group commander.
• 1:19:32
  We were living in Pebble Beach and we had some runway remaining and a buddy
• 1:19:37
  in the civilian sector offered me a killer job.
• 1:19:39
  We were living in Pebble Beach and retired there.
• 1:19:44
  Why not? I was tired and in March we left the Navy and been in the civilian side ever since.
• 1:19:51
  Wow. Okay. Let's back up. For our non-Avelator Navy Avelation listeners,
• 1:19:59
  describe, can you define the Battle E, what that's about?
• 1:20:03
  You bet. So the Navy and every unit has some criteria that they set in stone
• 1:20:10
  that makes a squadron organization aspire to.
• 1:20:13
  It's very aspirational, but certain things that they have to,
• 1:20:17
  targets they have to hit, whether it's personnel performance,
• 1:20:21
  aviation performance, maintenance performance, safety performance, community outreach.
• 1:20:27
  It's the holistic view of a squadron, how high functioning they are.
• 1:20:32
  And there's, let's say there's, I don't know, 36 F-18 squadrons in the Navy,
• 1:20:40
  two coasts between the East Coast and the West Coast.
• 1:20:42
  One squadron gets selected as the
• 1:20:45
  most battle efficient squadron so
• 1:20:48
  their retention rates and everything else and and
• 1:20:51
  and it's a highly coveted highly sought after unit
• 1:20:55
  award because it's a team award no one person gets to say look what i did it
• 1:21:00
  is the team saying look what we accomplished as a team and that's fine nice
• 1:21:08
  okay and then you just kind of breezed over this real quick i'm kind I'm re-attacking right now.
• 1:21:14
  You said you, I think you said you worked with the dev group.
• 1:21:20
  And my question that sparked in my mind when you said that was,
• 1:21:24
  what capacity was that? You bet.
• 1:21:28
  Can you talk about that? You bet. So.
• 1:21:32
  Finished my department head, head, head ride. And I was waiting to go into command,
• 1:21:37
  you know, waiting for the board and the Commodore.
• 1:21:40
  So he runs like the West Coast or the East Coast administratively called me
• 1:21:45
  into his office and said, hey, Wolfie, there's a job over at Dev Group.
• 1:21:49
  You know, and, you know, they have a special name and I don't even think that
• 1:21:53
  special name even matters that much anymore.
• 1:21:58
  But so he said, hey, there's this job. And I said, great.
• 1:22:01
  And, you know, I go over and I interview at that time with Captain Kernan.
• 1:22:05
  And he says, so, Dave, why do you want the job? He said, well,
• 1:22:07
  sir, I got to be honest with you. I don't know anything about the job.
• 1:22:12
  I don't. I'm tired. I just came off at my team with the blues.
• 1:22:20
  You know, I've been on deployments. I just need some downtime to refresh mama's batteries.
• 1:22:25
  He goes, no worries. You know, you won't deploy with us.
• 1:22:29
  Your job is to train us and teach us how to talk to aviators so we can get the
• 1:22:32
  bombs off the jet in an efficient manner. I said, great.
• 1:22:36
  So we go and join the team. I get to go to military free fall school.
• 1:22:41
  I'm jumping out of planes at 35,000 feet at night with combat equipment on.
• 1:22:47
  That's dangerous, you know.
• 1:22:50
  I got a couple i got a couple appendages that are still hurting from that.
• 1:22:56
  But then 9-11 happened and all bets were off and so i pumped i pumped with the
• 1:23:03
  teams to to afghanistan and you know and i'm 100 an administrator i do not want anyone to think that,
• 1:23:12
  I went there to support the team and I, I had been supported so well throughout my career.
• 1:23:18
  And I went there with the, with the absolute mission to support them to the best of my ability.
• 1:23:22
  And all I basically did was set up the Helleborn routes for all the activities they were doing.
• 1:23:28
  And, and there were some humanitarian things that we did that were so fricking cool.
• 1:23:34
  And, and it just reinforced how great America is to me personally. Yeah. We did.
• 1:23:41
  Speaking, Speaking of a group of individuals who strive for excellence, huh?
• 1:23:45
  Oh, you know what?
• 1:23:48
  You know, you sit there and you think, you know, I mean, I'm flying F-18s.
• 1:23:52
  I'm dropping bombs. I'm a badass.
• 1:23:54
  And, you know, not many people can do this. And then you see these guys.
• 1:23:59
  And I joked with one of them, are you guys really as tough as you think you are?
• 1:24:03
  He jumped out of his seat and he had me in a choke where I blacked out within,
• 1:24:07
  I estimate, maybe four seconds.
• 1:24:11
  And I'm like, okay, okay, man, I'm not here to help you, please. Don't do that again.
• 1:24:18
  But, yeah, they are absolutely everything they're said to be.
• 1:24:26
  Just confident, competent, and very subtle, right?
• 1:24:32
  They don't announce, hey, look at what I do.
• 1:24:35
  They just, they just. Oh, yeah, they are so low-key. In fact,
• 1:24:40
  I've got a buddy at work that did some union work with, and every now and then,
• 1:24:45
  you know, something would come up, we'd disagree on something.
• 1:24:47
  And, of course, I don't know how I'm – I'd be shocked if he has fewer than two
• 1:24:52
  dozen hand-to-hand kills.
• 1:24:55
  And don't make me come over there and kick your ass, you know.
• 1:24:58
  Just like a smile. Yeah. Okay.
• 1:25:02
  I'm just kidding. Please, don't kill me. Yeah, those guys –.
• 1:25:09
  Badass is an understatement. Thank you for that. Thanks for sharing that.
• 1:25:16
  How many years total in the Navy? 26 and a half. Thank you for your service. Couldn't do 30, huh?
• 1:25:25
  Again, that killer opportunity showed up, and we had our forever house, and it was wonderful.
• 1:25:32
  We get thanked a lot, right? I know you do. I know I do.
• 1:25:36
  Thanks for your service. And my response is, and it's always,
• 1:25:40
  I thank them for paying taxes so I could serve because I had so much fun and,
• 1:25:47
  you know, so much of my personal, you know,
• 1:25:52
  ego, for lack of better words, was built around this great gift of naval aviation.
• 1:25:57
  That is an excellent way of looking at it. It really is. You know? Yeah. So.
• 1:26:06
  Wow. sorry guys i you know i wish i could be eloquent as lawman or intake and
• 1:26:16
  some of the other folks i wish i had this you know oh you got you i know you
• 1:26:21
  think you don't and you're so humble wolfie you you really are but,
• 1:26:26
  You know, you're, I don't know how else to put it.
• 1:26:32
  You know, you look at it as a gift. And here's what I really love about you,
• 1:26:37
  man, is that you appreciate it so much. You realize that this is not something
• 1:26:43
  that everybody gets to do.
• 1:26:45
  And the fact that you got to do it is a huge blessing.
• 1:26:49
  I feel the same way and I love it so much.
• 1:26:53
  I got the damn wings tattooed on
• 1:26:56
  my chest i mean i just you know that was the biggest
• 1:26:59
  single achievement of my life is becoming a naval aviator
• 1:27:02
  and then you know once you get those wings now it's
• 1:27:05
  time to learn how to do it that's just the start it's
• 1:27:09
  a get to it's a get to job not a have to job yep
• 1:27:12
  right i i never took it for
• 1:27:15
  granted that before that is brilliant end you know
• 1:27:18
  every time i strapped into that jet i thought this is
• 1:27:21
  going to be the best day ever it could be my last
• 1:27:24
  time to do this it's going to be the best one ever and i
• 1:27:27
  never took one flight for granted and looking back on it now i'm glad i didn't
• 1:27:32
  because right it was because you don't know when it's going to end you know
• 1:27:35
  you're still flying though right yeah i i do i fly for one of the big airlines
• 1:27:41
  okay i've been doing that for a long time i finished my military career flying
• 1:27:46
  and see when 30 is in the guard.
• 1:27:47
  I did 32 years end to end, but I only, yeah, but only 20, like eight of them
• 1:27:53
  counted for retirement points. Yeah.
• 1:27:56
  Okay. It's okay. Yeah. Well, thank you for your service, sir.
• 1:28:01
  If you don't mind me asking, did you retire as an 06 or 07?
• 1:28:05
  06. Captain, thank you for your service. Thank you.
• 1:28:09
  Yeah. You know, we, again, I, I, I think I think we had runway remaining,
• 1:28:14
  we had some certainly towels.
• 1:28:17
  But, and there's times that I look back and say, oh, I wish I could have stayed
• 1:28:20
  a little bit longer and made a bigger, better difference.
• 1:28:25
  But I look back at also the memories and things that we did that I would have
• 1:28:31
  never in a million years dreamed of in the civilian side.
• 1:28:34
  And so, you know, we all make our decisions for a good reason, hopefully, in form.
• 1:28:39
  Before we land the airplane, let me ask, what was the best job that you had?
• 1:28:47
  In all those. I got to be honest with you.
• 1:28:50
  I think I would say, I wouldn't say it at the time because I was fricking exhausted,
• 1:28:57
  but without question, I think my air wing ride was the best ride of them all.
• 1:29:04
  I had the great privilege to
• 1:29:06
  work for Shoe Shoemaker and Sarge Alexander was the captain of the ship.
• 1:29:12
  And I had this, this group of COs that were unbelievable. And I pushed them so ridiculously hard.
• 1:29:21
  And what you're looking at right there is when we went into Afghanistan,
• 1:29:26
  I always led, you know, that I want to do things, make it fun,
• 1:29:31
  make it challenging and, and challenge the status quo.
• 1:29:34
  So when we went in to Afghanistan on our first flights, I said, it's JO.
• 1:29:40
  The JOs are leading this. And everybody's like, you can't do that,
• 1:29:43
  Wolfie. The COs need to do it. I said, no, the JOs are going to fly the missions.
• 1:29:48
  And, you know, the Admiral pulled me into his office. He said,
• 1:29:51
  Admiral, we've trained them. I have confidence in them.
• 1:29:54
  And I want them to know we have confidence in them. And I want them to feel
• 1:29:58
  the burden of responsibility, a command.
• 1:30:01
  I'm giving them command early on. They went in and executed flawlessly.
• 1:30:06
  And everybody comes back and says, whoo, that was brilliant.
• 1:30:10
  Well, we're going out of Afghanistan now. And I said, it's now the senior time
• 1:30:16
  and it's nothing but 05s and 06s going in country.
• 1:30:20
  We had Shoeshoemaker, the admiral, flying the recovery tanker.
• 1:30:25
  And we had Sarge Alexander, the captain of the ship, flying in that plane with
• 1:30:30
  him. And the JOs kept coming in my office.
• 1:30:33
  Keg, that's so dangerous. You can't do it. And I'm like, exactly what they said
• 1:30:37
  about you, I think we'll be okay.
• 1:30:40
  And we closed it out with a missile shoot over Qatar, which everybody said,
• 1:30:43
  you can't do that. And we ended up doing it, and it was a huge success.
• 1:30:47
  So that tour, I took a lot of risks and a lot of challenges,
• 1:30:51
  but measured and managed risk.
• 1:30:54
  And I think the air wing benefited greatly from it. I know I did. Oh, that's fantastic.
• 1:31:01
  Well, I wish you could have been there to see that in person. oh it
• 1:31:04
  was so cool well thank you for
• 1:31:07
  that yeah you know
• 1:31:10
  i don't know the jos think it was all that cool but i know it was oh i bet they
• 1:31:14
  thought it was cool yeah oh yeah and one actually one other question which we
• 1:31:20
  always ask and there it is so we forgot to ask it you ever tickle the handle very close.
• 1:31:30
  Wherein Grace Miller and I were coming back cross-country.
• 1:31:33
  Weather came in, and he got into Oceania. I couldn't get in,
• 1:31:38
  so I launch and go over to Langley.
• 1:31:41
  I'm on the approach in Langley. Weather goes bad.
• 1:31:45
  I launch out of there, push out of there, and go up to Richmond.
• 1:31:49
  I'm going to land at Richmond, and I lose the airfield again because weather
• 1:31:55
  just kept catching up to me.
• 1:31:57
  I said, hey, guys, I just lost all the lights. And they're like, we don't know why.
• 1:32:01
  And then they say, oh, yeah, the weather. And they start turning me away.
• 1:32:03
  I said, what are you doing? He goes, well, we're turning you to a five-mile
• 1:32:05
  final. I said, vector me straight overhead the airfield.
• 1:32:08
  Drop me down to 400 feet and turn on all your lights. And I'll figure out what's going to happen.
• 1:32:15
  And I did. They did. I got overhead the airfield. The lights come on.
• 1:32:19
  And I was perfectly lined up for a 90-degree turn to landing. I landed.
• 1:32:25
  And I had 160 pounds. And the Nate Tops at the time was 1,600 pounds in the
• 1:32:32
  Hornet because it was unreliable, unusable.
• 1:32:35
  And I sat there and they're like, OK, you can taxi clear the runway.
• 1:32:40
  I said, you know, give me a minute. I think I must have seen 25.
• 1:32:45
  And I taxied clear and made it to the to the FBO.
• 1:32:50
  And that stayed with me for a long time. I tried writing an article and the
• 1:32:53
  skipper said, you can't do this. Wolfie, it'll ruin your career.
• 1:32:56
  I said, no, there's some really good things.
• 1:32:58
  I learned some stuff and I want to share with the fleet. Don't do it.
• 1:33:06
  Jumping Jehoshaphat. And that one was, I was absolutely thinking about pulling the handle,
• 1:33:14
  but what I couldn't resolve was if I pull the handle and that plane crashes
• 1:33:19
  into somebody and kills them and I'm not in the plane, I'm a coward.
• 1:33:23
  Yeah and so i i thought long
• 1:33:26
  and hard about it and and it broke my heart because i'm i'm orphaning my kids
• 1:33:31
  if it were to flame out and uh yeah so that's rough didn't pull the handle i'm
• 1:33:38
  glad you didn't i'm glad it worked out it's kind of scared the shit out of me
• 1:33:41
  when you tell me the story i was just in richmond last week on a layover.
• 1:33:48
  Oh, man. Let's land this plane. Let's do it. All right.
• 1:33:54
  Well, thank you for your service. Thank you for all the vets who served.
• 1:34:00
  And the families who sacrificed so the veterans could serve. So, yeah.
• 1:34:07
  I'll jump right into the second one there, too. Let's give our thanks to Dave
• 1:34:12
  Hamilton and BackBeat Media, who handles all our advertising.
• 1:34:19
  BackBeatMedia.com. If you have a podcast and you're looking for advertising,
• 1:34:23
  reach out to BackBeatMedia.com. Maybe they can help you.
• 1:34:28
  Big thanks to Sticks, who's in the background tonight. Baggo is stuck in an
• 1:34:32
  airport somewhere, trying to get home.
• 1:34:35
  I think his flight canceled. His laptop's in his checked bag, I think.
• 1:34:41
  Anyway, he's here. He's able to watch and listen, I guess. Sticks is here physically.
• 1:34:45
  Thank you, Sticks, for producing this in the background. Indeed,
• 1:34:50
  Sticks. Thanks for producing.
• 1:34:51
  Badass was on. I've already seen a couple of his pictures.
• 1:34:55
  Thanks for Badass. That's BDS Aviation Photography. He's been a great supporter
• 1:35:01
  of the show. Man, is that guy great or what?
• 1:35:03
  Fantastic. So thank you to our advertisers this week, HSI Wealth Strategies,
• 1:35:08
  Robbie Walling, help you figure out your retirement.
• 1:35:12
  And now that I'm getting closer to it, I wish I'd have thought more about it 20 years ago.
• 1:35:18
  If you're in your 30s or 40s, now's the time to think about it,
• 1:35:22
  not 20 years. Don't worry about it.
• 1:35:24
  You've got 20 years before you've got to worry about it. Just spend it all. Come on. That's right.
• 1:35:28
  What's the best day to start your retirement planning? Today. Yesterday.
• 1:35:32
  So, yeah. So, and then the Fighting Through podcast. Give that a listen.
• 1:35:37
  That sounds pretty cool.
• 1:35:40
  Well, we got a new Patreon supporter. We do. Paul Shepardson. Yeah. Yeah. And Clint.
• 1:35:47
  He did a $25 donation. We're deeply grateful for that. You've lost your mind, Paul, but thank you.
• 1:35:56
  So clint clint bud you know clint bud pat he paid that's for patreon pat is
• 1:36:03
  patreon he's a patreon pilot yeah thank you so sorry about that i couldn't read
• 1:36:07
  i didn't know your acronyms yeah sorry and then then sal marinello has lost
• 1:36:14
  control of his wallet in his mind again.
• 1:36:17
  Well, thank you, Sal. Tanker Aircraft Commander.
• 1:36:20
  He's a new granddaddy today, it looks like. I saw a picture on,
• 1:36:24
  I think it was on Facebook. It might have been Instagram.
• 1:36:27
  But Sal's a new granddaddy. So beautiful baby boy. So that's cool stuff. Congrats, Sal.
• 1:36:33
  Hey, if you're inclined to give us a rating, make it five stars.
• 1:36:36
  Because if you can't give us five, tell us what we can do to fix it.
• 1:36:41
  Because we're trainable. So there I was.
• 1:36:45
  .us. .us. .us. So that's right, yeah. Right. And then, you know,
• 1:36:50
  we're in an ice storm up here, but I'm tempted to put on my So There I Was bikini
• 1:36:54
  and go run around in the snow just so the neighbors have something to laugh at.
• 1:36:58
  So there I was at US slash merch.
• 1:37:01
  Get yourself a fine koozie. Get yourself a drinking glass.
• 1:37:06
  Get yourself all kinds of stuff. And I'm trying to figure out a way to do it.
• 1:37:11
  Hoodies are good this time of year.
• 1:37:13
  Absolutely. Robin's Birdbrain Designs is now doing, she was doing the slate coasters.
• 1:37:19
  Now she's doing flasks and keychains and all kinds of stuff.
• 1:37:23
  We're trying to figure out a way to incorporate that into our merch store.
• 1:37:26
  So, but yeah, there's Fig and his VMA-223 Bulldog slate coaster.
• 1:37:31
  Cool stuff. So, and then I'm trying to think. I always forget.
• 1:37:37
  There seems like there's one more.
• 1:37:39
  There's two more. Two more. The two Air Force F-16 pilots that make the Air Force sound good.
• 1:37:47
  It's the Dos Gringos. They lack judgment.
• 1:37:52
  Yeah, they did. But they don't lack talent. No, they don't. They let us use their music.
• 1:37:58
  They got four albums, and there's not a bad song on any of them,
• 1:38:00
  including one that may ring home for Wolfie, I'm Always Looking Right.
• 1:38:07
  When you were the number three guy, you were always looking right. Yep.
• 1:38:11
  Are you familiar with the Dose Cringos, Wolfie? It's the Ballad of Thunderbird 2. I am not.
• 1:38:15
  I am going to send you a link to the Ballad of Thunderbird 2 because 2 is on
• 1:38:21
  the left side in the Thunderbirds. He's always looking right.
• 1:38:24
  Always looking right. You'll love it. It's going to ring true to you.
• 1:38:29
  You're going to laugh your ass off. I promise. Yep.
• 1:38:32
  And any and all of the Thunderbirds songs, you're going to laugh your ass off
• 1:38:36
  at. They're amazing. Those guys are something.
• 1:38:40
  So, any advice for our listeners until next week, Fig?
• 1:38:45
  Well, stay safe and check six.
• 1:38:48
  Music.
• 1:38:56
  There I was, crossing the pond And you could say that I wasn't exactly fond
• 1:39:02
  Of all the shit I was wearing on that day,
• 1:39:07
  Now an F-16 is cramped enough But it's even worse With all that stuff supposed
• 1:39:14
  to save your life And we knew there was no way,
• 1:39:19
  Because when you're going down the North Atlantic, man, it's over,
• 1:39:25
  It's what? He said it's over Oh boy, is this great!
• 1:39:34
  And we are out!
• 1:39:37
  Well, you're a better pilot than I am.