"The Right Stuff"

Most of you know of my love and fascination for "all things flying" - so, you can image how I felt attending my godson's graduation ceremony at Shepperd AFB in Texas over the weekend. Matt finished his primary training and now moves on to fly F-16s at Luke AFB in Arizona...there was a red-carpet day on Friday for family, and we were able to tour the base and see some of the equipment up close - I got to sit in an F-15, a B-1 bomber, and spent some time in the T-38 simulator (and didn't crash it!!).

The graduation ceremony was very well done - the military sure knows how to run these. There is an old tradition in the Air Force - a pilot never wears his first set of wings. In a private ceremony (pilots only) he breaks them in half, keeping one half and giving the other to a best friend or relative for good luck and safe-keeping. The halves are never to be brought together as long as the pilot is alive - after that, they are reunited for good luck in the next life. I'm sitting here looking at half of Matt's wings - he presented them to me at the end of the night - I nearly keeled over.

Please remember all our brave men and women in the military as you read this, and give them our full support!!