It’s been a long time coming. Some of you have followed my career progression from the beginning, others looked with interest, and still more of you got sick to hell of me in the past year.
Well, this is what it’s all about. Initial qualification. The ride that gets me qualified to do my part. Finally. Almost a year to the day that I graduated BMT.
I’m nervous about it, as you would expect, and my examiner is a tough-as-nails SOB, but he’s fair, and very thorough, and will make me do my absolute best, as it should be. However, I know my job as well as anyone else on the airplane, and I took my open and closed book tests and whipped them, so now it’s up to me to do my job. Then I can be a fully mission qualified aircrew member and I can walk around wearing the leather jacket and no longer be considered a student, I’ll be a knowledgeable and valuable member of the team.
I can then also go to the sandbox and do my part, should I have to, instead of sitting on the sidelines, which I loathe. I’m actually looking forward to that a little bit. My first deployment.
So this is a big day for me coming up. Wish me luck and hope I don’t mess up, even though there’s no chance of that.
So you know I’m already sick to hell of you (kidding, of course…), but I know you’ll kick ass. It’s probably selfish to hope you don’t have to go off and fight, because I doubt I’d get a decent night sleep until you’re back in the States, but seeing as it’s what you want, I hope you end up overseas. You’ll be great. Just make sure you make it bak to Robyn and Aaron and all of us here who are praying for you, or I’ll have to hunt you down and kick your punk ass…
Been there, done that, with many checkrides and quals. And I’ve been nervous as hell for each one. So I know how you feel. Just keep a level head and you’ll be fine! I’ll wish you good luck, but I doubt you need it.
