This post is several weeks overdue, but
my little brother, Stevie, recently learned that he gets to live his
dream of becoming a naval aviator.
Stevie has talked about joining the
military since he was three years old (we split the blame pretty
equally between my grandpa who was a colonel in the army and Top
Gun) and for most of that time he has talked about being a pilot
(we blame that entirely on Top Gun). There were times that he
talked about being a coach or an architect (and at one point an
astronaut but a large number of astronauts were originally Navy
pilots), but those ideas never lasted long; he always went back to
his original plan. When he started university at South Carolina’s
Citadel (the Confederacy’s answer to West Point and now a state-run
school that functions just like the federal academies except for the
fact that it feeds to all four military branches) he had one goal in
mind: earn a pilot slot after graduation. He has work hard on both
Navy assignments and academics assignments and even passed up an
opportunity to walk on to the wrestling team so he could focus on his
grades (as a state-ranked wrestler all through high school that was a
huge sacrifice). I was extremely anxious for him the week assignments
were due to come out, but I knew he had done everything he could and
that if he was assigned elsewhere it just wasn’t meant to be. I was
thrilled when I called my parents one night and my mom told me that
assignments had come out and I needed to give him a call. She
wouldn’t tell me what he got, but she did tell me he was in his
barracks watching Top Gun and I knew he wouldn’t torture
himself like that if he had been assigned elsewhere.
Congratulations, Stevie! You deserve it
and I have never been more proud of you. Just remember: Your ship may
be able to beat up my ship, but my ship is still more fun.
