Sunday, November 27, 2022

Sports Ball News, Sort of ...

I don't ordinarily pay too much attention to college football, with a couple of exceptions: the University of Michigan and the Naval Academy. Both sons-in-law have connections to those schools. Big Time is from Michigan, both his parents went to school at Michigan. Tuttle is an alumnus of the Naval Academy.

So I like to see those two teams win. This weekend was kind of special as 3rd-ranked Michigan posted an impressive win over 2nd-ranked Ohio State. Better yet, there was a flyover before the game. The jets involved were from VFA-122, Big Time's squadron.

Yup, he flew one of those jets on Saturday. Not sure which position, he was the senior guy on scene, so he could pick whichever slot he wanted, I don't have word yet which position he picked. But he was there.

Apparently the pilots were on the ESPN pregame show, I saw a photo, couldn't find the rerun though.

The special thing about all this, to me at any rate, is that as this was an extended trip, all the way from Lemoore in California to Columbus in Ohio, the crews had to leave before Thanksgiving. So yeah, they'd be away from home on turkey day.

For that long a trip you bring your own maintenance guys, stands to reason. (Let me say this right here, before anyone bitches about the cost to do this, these flyovers are great recruiting tools.)

Anyhoo, my son-in-law wanted to know if the enlisted ground crews could attend the game. He was told "no." It's my understanding that he was on the cusp of cancelling the flyover if the enlisted guys couldn't attend.

The ticket-deniers caved, the enlisted guys got tickets and a bus to and from the game (the jets being at the airport).

Taking care of the troops, a key element in any leader's make-up.

Well done, Big Time, well done.




26 comments:

  1. Good for your son-in-law for sticking to his guns,er....tickets That stadium seats over 102 thousand, plenty of room for ground crews.

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    1. I can picture some bureaucrat shaking his head and mumbling about rules.

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  2. Kudos to your son-in-law! Take care of the troops and they will take care of you. My grandson posted a few photos of him standing with some of the pilots of the Blue Angels standing next to their planes at Seymour-Johnson AFB. I thought it was very classy of the Navy pilots to pose for photos with an F-15 crew chief.
    -Barry

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  3. Well done Big Time! !*(*$%*** mendacious ticket taking bureaucrats...

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  4. Loyalty down, loyalty up. The way it should always be.

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  5. Good to see old-time officerism still working. There should never have been an issue to begin with about tickets for the groundcrews.

    And FSU beat UF, so suck it, Gators.

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  6. Hey Old AFSarge;

    As a "Maintainer" in the Civilian world, I applaud your SIL for thinking of the mechanics. A lot of the occifers would have hung out the enlisted to dry. Yes we have served under those martinets so major kudo's.

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    Replies
    1. Some, not all. There are still some good officers out there, just not in the flag ranks.

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  7. Lex would have done the same thing, I bet. BZ, Big Time, even though I am somewhat loosely aligned behind Ohio.
    John Blackshoe

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  8. I'll also offer a "Well Done" to Big Time. The sad part is that action should be de rigueur for all concerned and no need to be mentioned to the stadium staff because "Of Course they're invited! They're putting their butts on line for our country, it's the least (very least) we can do!"
    Alas...

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    1. Better yet, LUSH sent me a screen shot from coverage of the game. In it there are enlisted guys, in uniform, on the sidelines. Not up in the stands, but right there close to the action.

      Concur, he shouldn't have had to ask.

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  9. "Take care of your guys, they'll take care of you" This goes for all ranks. Many times as a nuke, had good watch officers call me up as chief reactor watch and tell me they owed me a case of beer for keeping them out of trouble...(none ever payed out) on the flip side, I went to bat for my guys alot, they always seemed to pay the beer debt. The good ones, yes, the bad ones... not so much.

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    1. Loyalty up and down the chain, just like WSF said, it works.

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  10. Yeah, those maintainers get overlooked, especially if the flyover is within a single bag of gas. Glad he hooked his up. Big day for Oregon/OSU football too, with the Beavers being down 31-10 in the 3rd quarter, but rolling over the Ducks in the 4th to win. My sister was a Duck, and her son was a Beaver.

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    1. I had heard that the Beavers had come from behind to win.

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  11. ALWAYS.
    My father and grandfather graduated West Point. I think both of them gave me a copy of Once an Eagle and said you better be Sam Damon by the time you get a commission and not a Courtney Massengale! I had the very good fortune to work for Damons except once or twice. Doing the Sam on them was fun.
    As you know, it can be brutal sometimes in war.

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    Replies
    1. It can. The world has far too many Massengales and not enough Sam Damons!

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    2. We have always had our Massengales, a failing of our species. As you noted, though; our current flag ranks haven't a single Sam among them.
      Boat Guy

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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