aloft
New Member
Now that he\'s not here to defend himself....
I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a little "trash talking" about MikeD.
As you may recall, we had a little fire in my neck of the woods a few weeks ago--you may have seen it on the news, or even in this thread. As you may also recall, I'm a Civil Air Patrol member. Part of the support the Air Force provides CAP is what's called the Reserve Assistance Program, a program by which inactive Air Force reservists (called Individual Mobilization Augmentees) contribute their time and experience to local CAP units in exchange for points toward retirement.
One such reservist, a major named Steve (a former C-141 driver who presently flies for American) works with the local unit here in San Diego. Steve lives in the Scripps Ranch area--the hardest hit by the "Cedar" fire--and his home was burned to the ground along with many of his neighbors'. Steve and his family had literally no advance evacuation warning early that Sunday morning and got out with pretty much just the clothes on their backs. They've since taken up residence in a hotel as they begin to put their lives back together.
Despite all the upheaval in his life over this situation, Steve showed up to the following week's CAP meeting as usual, only sporting sweats and running shoes instead of the usual green flight suit, which was destroyed along with the rest of his AF and AA uniforms and everything else he owned. Needless to say, we were all pretty impressed by this show of dedication. Being an IMA reservist and no longer on flight status, however, meant that the AF wouldn't be replacing his uniforms lost to the fire, and given the fact that there are no AF installations nearby meant that it'd be a while before Steve got himself back into uniform. That night, I decided to set out to see what I could to for him in that regard, and sent out feelers to a handful of people I know on flight status in the AF to see if they or their squadronmates might be able to help out with getting Steve back into uniform. MikeD was the first to respond, and even though he was only a week from deploying to Iraq, six days later I had in my hands a brand new flight suit from him for Steve, which I delivered last night.
Gang, I'm here to tell ya that even though MikeD puts on a good tough-guy fighter pilot front, the dude's got a heart of gold. I don't know him outside of our JC connection and he doesn't know Steve at all, but that didn't stop him from pulling a few strings to help out a fellow officer and pilot hit with some unfortunate circumstances. That's the mark of a true gentleman.
Good on ya, Mike.
I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a little "trash talking" about MikeD.
As you may recall, we had a little fire in my neck of the woods a few weeks ago--you may have seen it on the news, or even in this thread. As you may also recall, I'm a Civil Air Patrol member. Part of the support the Air Force provides CAP is what's called the Reserve Assistance Program, a program by which inactive Air Force reservists (called Individual Mobilization Augmentees) contribute their time and experience to local CAP units in exchange for points toward retirement.
One such reservist, a major named Steve (a former C-141 driver who presently flies for American) works with the local unit here in San Diego. Steve lives in the Scripps Ranch area--the hardest hit by the "Cedar" fire--and his home was burned to the ground along with many of his neighbors'. Steve and his family had literally no advance evacuation warning early that Sunday morning and got out with pretty much just the clothes on their backs. They've since taken up residence in a hotel as they begin to put their lives back together.
Despite all the upheaval in his life over this situation, Steve showed up to the following week's CAP meeting as usual, only sporting sweats and running shoes instead of the usual green flight suit, which was destroyed along with the rest of his AF and AA uniforms and everything else he owned. Needless to say, we were all pretty impressed by this show of dedication. Being an IMA reservist and no longer on flight status, however, meant that the AF wouldn't be replacing his uniforms lost to the fire, and given the fact that there are no AF installations nearby meant that it'd be a while before Steve got himself back into uniform. That night, I decided to set out to see what I could to for him in that regard, and sent out feelers to a handful of people I know on flight status in the AF to see if they or their squadronmates might be able to help out with getting Steve back into uniform. MikeD was the first to respond, and even though he was only a week from deploying to Iraq, six days later I had in my hands a brand new flight suit from him for Steve, which I delivered last night.
Gang, I'm here to tell ya that even though MikeD puts on a good tough-guy fighter pilot front, the dude's got a heart of gold. I don't know him outside of our JC connection and he doesn't know Steve at all, but that didn't stop him from pulling a few strings to help out a fellow officer and pilot hit with some unfortunate circumstances. That's the mark of a true gentleman.
Good on ya, Mike.