Hunting Tankers In The Desert Episode 172

So There I Was · Aug 21, 2025 · 1h 37m

Retired Marine AV-8B Harrier pilot, “Cutter,” brings stories that are equal parts funny and awe-inspiring. He kicks off with the 2005 twelve-ship departure from al-Asad—skimming the Saudi desert on fumes, praying the tankers showed up—before pushing through a 10.5-hour odyssey to Rota, Spain. He rewinds to OCS at Camp Upshur with 300 candidates lined up for a cold gamma-globulin shot, then to flight school in T-2s that needed a literal bicycle pump to make the radio work. Cutter recounts the logging cable in Japan that shredded his wing at 480 knots, and the engine fire in Yuma that ended in…