Mercy Is Wasted on the Unremorseful

At dinner tonight, we played a few cards from a game called Table Topics. One of the questions to come up was, "Which is more important, justice or forgiveness?" My answer: it depends.

Why? Because sometimes, justice precludes forgiveness; and sometimes, forgiveness is justice.

An example: I knew a family once, shattered by the perfidy of someone in a position of trust. To this day, one member of that family thinks that another member of the family is "unforgiving" because of the grudge they bear the betrayer. I happen to disagree. The particular wolf in shepherd's clothing in question not only failed to show any regret for his actions, but as nearly as I can tell, has since moved on to even richer pastures for the plunder of innocents.

Asked for my opinion on the matter, I offered this: even God demands that we ask forgiveness, because even God understands that mercy is wasted on the unremorseful.

Campbells Holding Our Own

In terms of the frequency of our name, that is. If you go here, you'll find an interesting analysis of the shift in the demography of the US.

Step aside Moore and Taylor. Welcome Garcia and Rodriguez.

Smith remains the most common surname in the United States, according to a new analysis released yesterday by the Census Bureau. But for the first time, two Hispanic surnames — Garcia and Rodriguez — are among the top 10 most common in the nation, and Martinez nearly edged out Wilson for 10th place.

Campbell, I'm happy to say, climbed three spaces.

Who Said What

I had thought about titling that last post, "Hell Hath No Fury . . . " But upon looking up the quote, I learned, oddly enough, that it didn't originate where I thought. Even better, I found that a number of other "quotes" I thought I knew well, also didn't come from the sources I was accustomed to crediting for them. While I recognize that the internet overfloweth with bad information, and only at great risk should anyone consider it the last word on anything, I've found over the years that, with regard to matters other than political biographies, sites such as Wikipedia are generally fairly reliable.

I hope the same may be said of Wikiquote, from which the samples below come. With that in mind, and the caveat that I've not done the personal research to confirm the validity of even the examples I'll offer, here are some tidbits from a page dedicated to some of the most frequently misattributed and misquoted "quotes." When you have a little time to kill, you might peruse the page simply for the fun of it.

• "Just the facts, Ma'am." Never actually uttered on Dragnet.
• "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Not from Shakespeare.
• "Only the dead have seen the end of war." Not from Plato.

Admittedly, many of the quotes listed on the page are not misattributed, but only "misquoted," in that they are paraphrases, capturing the meaning of the original, if not the exact wording. Still, it's an interesting page on which to kill a few minutes and learn a few things.

Half Carat Wedding Set - $350

I offer you this, from craigslist, as the funniest thing I've read in at least the last month, all the more so for knowing that it's true. You find it here, as the text for an ad under the same title as this post, offered by someone whom I really hope I never seriously piss off.

Soon to be ex-wife selling half carat diamond wedding/engagement set that had been custom designed years ago back when scum sucking bottom dwelling lying cheating duplicitious irrational spouse was putting on the dog and pony show of charm and good behavior. Buy this ring for your soon to be better half and put some good juju on it. I never want to see it again. Diamond has three occlusions in it (jewelry-speak for flecks o' carbon) and those pretty little baguettes that frame it. One baguette missing from some years ago (see picture. Note: must have had better sense to get lost early before all hell broke loose). Bands are fused together with little gold beading on the inside of the ring to keep it from rolling round and round that finger. Ring is size 5.5 but a jeweler can expand or shrink the band to fit the finger of your beloved. Contact me for serious inquiries only and CASH ONLY. Please do not waste my time as I am still in the anger phase of recovery. My soon to be ex-husband spent close to $2000 on this ring when he bought it unless he was lying about that, too. Appraisers told me it was worth $500.

On "Doing More with Less"

The office is like a ship with a gaping hole in the hull, and I am like a fatalist crewmember. Recognizing that all the frenzied bailing in the world will not match the flow of water in, I have settled into a steady bailing, unconcerned really. I will step off onto a raft on 18 July (or straight into the water if I have no job yet), but either way, I will float or swim away from this institution that has systematically gutted its crews while simultaneously making it harder and harder for those left to get anything done. The peripheral demands on time, in the form of ancillary training, nitnoy paperwork (most of which is digital and hampered by user-unfriendly interfaces that someone convinced the govt would be more efficient) and network roadblocks masquerading as protections but which, in the end, eat up far more hours across the force than any hacker attack ever has or likely could. In terms of cost-benefit analysis, I remain convinced our own Information Assurance folks are our own worst enemies. Meanwhile, institutional denial is rampant. "These aren't the droids you're looking for."

It is a good time to retire.

". . . of their own volition, they stayed with the ship until the very end, steadfastly playing light, airy music to help keep passengers calm while the available lifeboats were loaded." (Source)

"Misogyny Is Like Jazz . . .

. . . women know it when they hear it." So says Daily Show correspondent Kristen Schaal, as she laments that, "The media treats Hillary Clinton like a Hooter's waitress."

If you don't understand satire (in all of which, there is more than a small element of truth), then for heaven's sake don't click on the video--you have no business watching anything from The Daily Show, ever.

Manageable Chaos

My posts have been erratic at best lately, but I have more excuses to choose from than any man needs. A friend asked today how things were at my end. Slightly edited, here's my response:

I think the best description of everything on my end is "manageable chaos." I have both my girls and all the animals (two dogs, one cat, one goldfish) until next Monday. My nearly ex is in California for the week.

So the youngest daughter and I ferried three animals from the other place to mine last night, with her balancing the goldfish bowl in her lap and me trying to keep the cat from pouncing onto the dashboard while the newfy looked to be in a trance in the back seat. I don't think she likes vehicular travel, which is good--if she paced, even the Jeep would rock from side to side. Gotta love that window-rattling bark though and the fact that you can feel the house shake when she runs to investigate something. Better than ADT.

Manageable chaos because each night requires a re-evaluation of the setting of curfews I can live with and my daughters not chafe at overmuch. And because the house is for sale (I may actually be praying for no showings this week). And because when I scheduled the husky's surgery, I hadn't expected to be stabling the horse for the week, so I have to find a way to keep the 100lb+ Clydesdale "puppy" from licking or tearing out the stitches on what I used to think of as a full-sized dog, but who now looks like a grey, black, & white Alfa Romeo (would have said MG, but can't imagine one in those colors) parked next to a black Hummer. And because each day brings my last day in uniform closer, so there are the constant tasks that accompany ending a marriage, ending a career (via self-service online outprocessing--I frequently wonder what would happen if I just refuse to do it all myself, but probably not something I'm going to try), starting a career, setting up the end-of-career hoopla, selling a house, setting up a web for a charity, and constantly harassing the bad guys.

Manageable chaos through most of which I wear a permanent smile which is both genuine and inexplicable. Not because I can't explain it, but because I choose not to. I keep thinking of that great moment in The Turning Point (the first movie I spent the money (which I had little of as a freshman cadet) to see more than once at the theater) where Leslie Brown, playing the daughter, responds to an invitation to discussion from Shirley MacLaine, playing the mom, with something like, "I don't want to spoil it." Spoil is the wrong word. It's simply that trying to describe or explain some things is an exercise in exploring the futility and limitations of language.

And manageable chaos because sleeping girls have no retention when you wake them to tell them anything, thus my daughter's panicked text ("Where is your dog?!") when she realized around lunchtime that the husky was missing. No recollection of my waking her this morning to ask whether she preferred the newfy inside or out ("Outside please.") because I was taking the husky in for surgery ("Okay. I love you. Have a nice day."). "I don't remember that at all." :-) I'm going to start carrying my digital recorder in my pocket. Besides, who knows when I'll have a great idea like "Feed mayonnaise to tuna fish." (See Night Shift, for that and other equally memorable moments, like Michael Keaton's explication of the word "prostitution". >-) Honestly folks, I only saw this movie once and long ago, I swear, but when you see a movie during a SAC alert tour, the best lines get lots of mileage in the ensuing days of pseudo-incarceration.)

And thanks to the wonder of YouTube, here's that explication of "prostitution" which I last saw in 1982. :-)



And better still, it's not the "Feed mayonnaise to tuna fish" scene, but you can get the idea:

President Visits USAFA

I missed it because I was on leave to bring my daughter across the country from her first year in school. Then again, had it not been for that, I'd have taken leave to miss it. Ever since singing with the Merced Barbershop Chorus at a George Sr. campaign stop, back around 1988, I've been somewhat averse to any function with more than one or two guys walking around in suits and sunglasses and with their hands inside soft briefcases slung over their shoulders. I'm sure they just don't want to lose their place in the magazine they were reading before the event started, but that many dedicated readers in one place tends to make me nervous. Well-informed people tend to have strong opinions and if a fight breaks out about whether Southern Living or Cottage Living has the final say on eventually putting Shabby Chic to bed, I don't want to be caught in the middle of it.

But catching up on The Daily Show during my dinner tonight, I couldn't help but think maybe I'd missed something after all.

Enjoy.

On the Road Again

Sorry for the light blogging lately. May is usually a travel month for me it seems. I've spent the last two weekends in the South, and I'm remembering more than ever what I love about the part of the country I call home.

Last night, my oldest daughter and I sat in the heavy cool Southern air at the Time Warner Pavilion in Raleigh and listened to James Taylor take us back. The last time we sat together at a JT concert would have been around 1996 at Wolftrap. It was her and her sister's first concert. She was all of about seven, and her sister all of four, but they loved James as much as we did, and there could be no leaving them with a sitter. In 2003, we heard him in Charlotte, but they sat in the seats with their aunt and uncle while we sat in the lawn with the folks who were more interested in partying than listening. Never again, that.

So last November, I took the younger sister to see JT in Colorado. The older of the two finished her first year of college weeks ago, but hung out here in NC waiting so that we could see JT. This morning, we leave to drive back to Colorado for the summer.

Last night, though, was magical. As I said, last time we sat together for JT in concert, she could still sit comfortably on my shoulders. When she was still crawling, I would carry her around the room, dancing gently, and singing with JT, mostly Never Die Young and That's Why I'm Here. Last night, as she occasionally rested her head on my shoulder, we were both traveling back to that gentle time, that time when a family was just beginning. It was, in every respect, a magical night.

Change

Change is constant. And far too much avoidable human misery stems from an unhealthy reluctance to acknowledge that fact and work toward shaping ourselves to the world as we find it each day rather than struggling to keep it within the boundaries we set for it. If there is any supremacy in 'native' cultures, I believe it rests in the extension of that necessity in each day's physical life to a spiritual dimension as well. We tend too much to revere the static. The same misbegotten motivation that allows us to think we can arrest the shifting shape of North Carolina's Outer Banks drives us to stunt our own growth and sometimes even that of those we love. Every season has its beauty, including those of our soul.

The Impotence of Proofreading

Hat tip to Buck for this one, an English professor's dream. Funniest thing I've seen since the paper I graded whose first sentence read, "The subject of my S.A. is . . . " Enjoy.

The horse, the cart, the good man

If you had asked me, I'd have told you that getting together with an old friend was always a good excuse to break out the good Scotch and good cigars--Laphroaig in his glass, Johnny Walker Black in mine, and a Fuente Hemingway Short Story for each of us.

What I realize now, after two and a half hours on my porch in the setting sun, is that, really, the Scotch or Bourbon or cigars are really just an excuse to spend time in the company of a good friend and a good man.

Adventures in (not) Shoplifting

I have much to do today. I took a day of leave from the office to get it done. But I have to tell this story.

About an hour ago, I decided to make a quick run to the store for lunch. I figured I'd grab some sushi from the deli and knock out a little grocery shopping. This is not a leisurely exercise mind you. I have a list. I'm on a mission. Typical guy shopping. Get in. Get out. Get it done.

Checking the pantry beforehand to finalize my list I see a bottle of wine I've been meaning to return and exchange. Nothing expensive. I used to buy wine by the case when I had someone to enjoy it with every afternoon. Now it's more haphazard. And typically, a bottle will go bad before I finish it, suction corks and inert gassing notwithstanding. A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple bottles of shamefully inexpensive wine on the recommendation of the shop owner. He'd been dead right on the better bottles I'd purchased over time, so when he said this little $4 cab was worth a try, I figured what the heck. A cup of coffee costs more at Starbucks.

But when I went to pull a bottle back out of the rack at home, my hand came up all wet from the wine leaking around the foil. Figuring that bottle had a better than average chance of being corked, I set it up in the pantry to prevent it leaking onto the carpet if I left it in the rack, and I made a mental note to exchange it.

Fast forward a couple weeks to an hour or so ago. The wine shop is next door to the grocery store. I'm not going to mention any names here because I like these people, or I did. Still like the husband. Probably keep shopping there just out of sympathy for him. Keep reading, you'll understand why.

Anyway, I park right in front of the door of the wine shop. I take my bottle of wine and step inside. Not a soul in sight. "Hello." Wait. "Anybody home." Wait. Nothing. "I'll come back." I turn around and head right back out the door, open the driver's side door to the Jeep, lay the bottle on the driver's seat so I don't forget to go back in and try again, close the door and walk away to the grocery store. Mind you, I never stepped more than four paces inside the door of the wine shop. I was, presciently, a little worried about going deeper into the store without someone to witness that I was bringing the bottle in the door with me.

So, I press on to King Sooper, whiz through my grocery shopping, and am back at my Jeep in probably 15 minutes or so. Waiting for me are a man and a woman. As I'm putting my groceries in the passenger side, the woman begins to speak.

"Sir, we just want you to know that we've written down your license number and the police are on the way." Oddly enough, this isn't said in an exactly friendly tone.

I knew immediately what was going on. I think I must have foreseen it when I stepped in the door to start with and no one was there and I knew better than to go further.

"Well good," I said, really not unkindly or argumentatively. It helps to know that you're in the right. I wasn't really worried about how it was all going to turn out. I was mostly concerned about getting things straightened out and getting back here to get to work. (This blog entry is therapy--a winding down.) "When they get here, we can all look at your security tapes together. You do have a security camera don't you?"

"Yes. We know we're missing a bottle."

Without commenting on whatever problems they were having accurately tracking their inventory, I went back to the camera. "Have you looked at your tapes? If you'll look at your tape, you'll see that I came in the door with that bottle of wine to exchange it. It's leaking. I expect it's probably corked." As I say this, I'm walking around the Jeep, getting the wine out of the front seat, and walking into the store. "If you'd simply waited inside, you'd have seen me come back, get the bottle out again, and walk into the store."

Inside the store, the woman alternates between ignoring me in favor of the one other customer they have and continuing to cast accusations my way.

"Well what did you run away so fast for?"

?? "I didn't run away. I put the bottle on the front seat of my Jeep so I wouldn't leave without remembering to try again, and I walked to King Sooper to do my grocery shopping. I didn't run anywhere, and I wasn't even going to drive away without coming in the store again."

"We're missing a bottle," she repeated.

"I can't help that. I paid for this one weeks ago. I brought it back to exchange because it's leaking. Here," I said, taking a business card from my wallet, "I'll go you one better than a license tag, here's my business card. Look at your tapes!"

The husband meanwhile, who has driven in from home, has verified that the bottle is, in fact, leaking and possibly corked. To him, the truth of the situation is fairly obvious. Who's going to enter a store, make a circuit of the place and abscond with a $4 bottle of wine, drop it in their vehicle parked by the front door, then walk away, shop for a while and return. He says as much. Adding that it makes sense to him. If I were going to steal something, I'd certainly have chosen something worthwhile. But the woman, meanwhile, is having none of it. I've been tried and convicted in her book, and if I'm not guilty of stealing the wine, then, I'm by God guilty of making her think I did.

"Why didn't you just wait?" she asked.

"Because I have things to do, and it was no trouble to go on and do my grocery shopping and return since you were obviously busy in the back somewhere. I called out twice. For that matter, why didn't you, just wait? If you'd waited inside the store for about half a minute, you'd have seen me return, retrieve the bottle and come in to try again. Or better yet," and this was truly the snippiest thing I said during the entire conversation, "if you'd been up here doing your job, none of this would have happened."

"I was using the bathroom."

"I understand. People have needs. But if you came out in time to see me put the bottle in the Jeep, then why didn't you come out the door and shout at me then?"

"You're much taller than I am. I came in and called him."

I kid you not. I was dumbstruck. A thousand witty things come to mind now, and even non-witty, frank questions, like, "Do I look like I go around beating up shop owners?" (I'm wearing jeans, suede Timberline loafers, and a white golf shirt today.) Or, "I'm taller than him too you know." I stood there. Speechless.

"Will you please look at the tapes? Are the police coming or not?" I'm hoping they are. I want to be there when she looks at the tapes and sees that I never got far enough in the door to take anything.

"No. I didn't call them. I didn't want to ruin anyone's day."

"Well this has clearly ruined yours."

"I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine. And the boss had to come in."

"For your information, this is my husband, not my boss."

"Clearly," on the inside. "Sorry," out loud, looking at her, but really meaning it for him.

At this point, the husband is apologizing as much as he dares. You can almost see the mental calculations going on. Piss off a customer vs piss off the wife. I'd have kissed the customer goodbye too. And I wasn't even pissed off. Anger germinates in fear, and I never really had anything to be afraid of here. Loss of time, maybe, waiting for the police to review the security tapes, but the truth of what was going on was too intuitively obvious to the husband to require that.

"I'm really sorry," he said at one point. "Before we put up the cameras, we were losing a lot of inventory."

"I understand," I said. "Believe me. I grew up in a grocery store in North Carolina. I completely understand." I was trying, really trying, to find some common ground here.

The rest of the conversation gets somewhat fuzzy. I can't remember exactly what it was she was saying that kept making it clear she just wanted me to leave and she didn't care if I ever came back. I kept trying to find some middle ground where we could all be friends again, but apparently, if shoplifting is a misdemeanor, not shoplifting but looking like you might have--even though you tried studiously to avoid that appearance--is an unforgivable felony.

Still, I'd rather be the guy wrongly accused than the guy who wouldn't hold the cross while she nailed me up. Even after all was said and done, it was clear she was still convinced she'd caught me red-handed trying to make off with a bottle of wine worth considerably less than a gallon of gas. Worst of all, now the husband was my accomplice. All her left over anger had to go somewhere. I should pick up a good Scotch later today (from somewhere else) and drop it off for him in a gift bag. I think he's gonna need it.

Constantine's Sword

An interesting article in today's Gazette opens with a single line, "Here we go again."

Well, yes and no. In so much as a new film, Constantine's Sword, can't help but put the USAF Academy and Colorado Springs in the national spotlight, yes, there is an inescapable sense of déjà vu. But in the sense of, "we've handled this and all is well so why won't people leave us alone now," I can only offer my favorite line in all of Hemingway as an answer: "Isn't it pretty to think so."

A separate article in the Gazette, makes much of the Academy's Superintendent's decision on Wednesday not to allow the showing of clips from the film at a "seminar" presentation by Mikey Weinstein, Ambassador Joe Wilson, and scholar Reza Aslan. The superintendent's decision becomes more understandable though when one considers that he had not seen the clips in question, and there can be little doubt that his inbox was inundated with e-mail following a press release by the Catholic League which announced, erroneously, that viewing the clips was mandatory for cadets and staff alike.

Yesterday, we issued a news release regarding the anti-Catholic movie ‘Constantine’s Sword,’ clips of which are being shown today at the Air Force Academy to some faculty and students; attendance is mandatory. Two new developments have convinced us that nothing less than a full-blown investigation of events on this campus will resolve this problem. That is why I am writing to the Board of Visitors of the USAFA to launch a probe of what is occurring; copies of this letter are being sent to their superiors on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. (Source)

Maybe Catholic League president Bill Donahue is a nice guy, but he's clearly a careless guy when it comes to the facts, and easily excitable, and the kind of person who keeps already strained staffs busy answering congressional questions about things that never really happened. The panel presentation at which the clips had been scheduled to air was never mandatory for anyone that I'm aware of. There is a tendency on the part of many to forget that while the military academies are military, they are also colleges, institutions of higher learning where the exchange of ideas is at least one of the primary objectives.

People who are going to wage electronic guerrilla warfare to suppress that exchange of ideas (in addition to the press release from which the quote above comes and which concluded with the e-mail address of the Academy's Director of Communications, the previous day's press release concluded with the e-mail address of the Superintendent himself) should take the time to get their facts straight. Given that the clips were subsequently suppressed (yes, I did in fact attend the seminar, freely and of my own volition, which began after a 20 minute delay rumored to be caused by the debate over showing or not showing the clips), I suppose one must congratulate Mr. Donahue on his success. And one can only hope that he follows through on his promise (in yet another press release) to write yet more letters to those same authorities above and tell them he considers the matter closed. Right. Like that ever works.

But back to that opening of the Gazette article, "Here we go again," and its implied weariness with an issue it implies is behind us. It gets even better. To be completely fair (and to put the deconstructionist's scapel to good use), what the opening paragraph really implies is that the issue ("religious discrimination and overt Christian proselytizing at the Air Force Academy from 2003 to 2005") never actually existed. Instead, Mark Barna writes for the Gazette that, "Nearly one-third of 'Constantine’s Sword' is devoted to a scandal over reports of" those things. Not the fact of those things, or even the scandal over those things, but "a scandal over reports of." Meaning to or not, I think Barna just one-upped Plato's shadows on the wall of the cave. It's a crafty castration (and I recognize that in saying so I may be giving Barna more credit for skill and intent than he deserves), but it's a castration nonetheless, subtly diminishing the point that the film's Oscar-nominated director and the book's National-Book-Award-winning author are trying to make.

So why am I even bringing this issue up here, having not yet even seen the film myself. Two reasons.

First, I believe that if there is any single element of the human condition which should possess the capability of drawing tears from the eyes of God Himself, it should be the relentless slaughter of one human by another that is constantly taking place in His holy name, however those on either side choose to conceive Him.

Second, I believe that better than 90% of what Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation have to say is dead right, despite the fact that Mikey is utterly offensive in his promotion of it 90% of the time.

And I could say more about either of those things, but I'm out of time for today.

Gila Bend Sunrise

If I were to write anything today, it would be profoundly sad. Instead, I'll reach back to that happy place I was in just over a week ago and offer the following, at least partially in response to Piper's own offering over at his place. Nearly without fail, during that two weeks in Gila Bend, I snapped a photo of the sunrise each day. Here's one of my favorites.

OMG Funny

If you don't have nine minutes, a box of tissues, and a chair in which to collapse in laughter, then skip this. Otherwise, do not drink in the vicinity of your keyboard and do not stop before the 1 minute 50 second point. At that point, it becomes clear why the other guys on the stage are laughing so hard. If you can stop after that, you're a better man (or woman) than I.

Hat tip: Jay

C-130 Jump

I finally found a little time to download footage of last Friday's C-130 jump and do a little editing. This or a wet t-shirt contest on some Mexican beach. No contest. This marks my seventh spring break at Gila Bend with the jump team and, I guess, my last. This is what I'll miss most about the AF.

Blue skies. Doc.
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The World Spins Madly On

Still in that two weeks of jumping, but sometimes the world encroaches upon even our happy places. Sometimes there are words. Sometimes music is better.

Milestone: Jump #900

This particular aging airframe was happy to hear from a flight surgeon a couple weeks ago, "You have the vital signs of a teenager." Part of the reason may be having a hobby that keeps me enthusiastic about life. And in regard to that hobby, yesterday afternoon, in the company of four other enthusiasts, I made jump number 900. To say we had a blast doesn't scratch the surface.

The good news from the Arizona desert is that uplinking through my Treo works like a charm. The bad news is that after making nine skydives in a day, I have just enough energy left to shower, eat, and fall asleep before 9:00 p.m. And, because the nylon flashing on the rig slides under my nails a few times every pack job, typing is now a rather torturous activity.

Nonetheless, I wanted to say hello. An old friend has been busily snapping photographs, and when I can catch up with him at the end of a day, I'll post a few.

Until then, blue skies to all. Doc.

Aging Airframes in Perspective

A quick post, and then, likely, silence for a bit. I leave in the morning for two weeks of balancing bent space against aerodynamic resistance for about a minute at a time, as many times a day as I can pack and get back on the airplane.

And speaking of airplanes. I've said once or twice that a good way of understanding the age of our current USAF fleet is to imagine if say a WWII bomber had been flying as long. The KC-135 came into service in 1957 for instance. That would be the same as if there had still been operational squadrons of B-17s in 1994. Try to imagine that. And the 135 will be around for at least another decade yet. Imagine B-17s flying over Baghdad in 2003. Just try.

So, for what could be my last post for a bit, chew on this link.

To help put this aging airframe issue in perspective, we recently matched the various dates when aircraft from the Air Force fleet officially entered service (Initial Operating Capability) with the events that were occurring during those same respective years. On a first glance this comparison is amusing. However, upon a second look it is clear that we face a very serious situation and must do everything possible to address this critical issue. As one Air Force senior leader recently remarked, “It was kind of funny...in a nostalgic way...to fly the same jet as a 2-star that I flew as a butter bar. I'm finding it difficult to see the humor in my one-bar son flying it.”