Red Team flying story

One of our pilots has a friend who is helping to train pilots for the new air force of this country. The student pilots he has are a mix of guys who have no prior flying experience and guys who used to be pilots in the old air force, the dictator's air force. A former fighter pilot from the old air force told this story.

The 2003 war was in full swing and he had taxied out to the end of the runway and was waiting there to launch on a mission against our forces. He knew he didn't have much of a chance of coming back; the orders he'd been given were mostly to the effect of "take off and we don't expect to see you again." But he was going to go and try.

As he waited to launch a group of F-18s showed up over the field and put some bombs right in the middle of the runway ahead making it impossible for him to take off. No flying that day. He got out of the plane and went home.

He said those F-18 drivers could have easily killed him but they didn't. They just holed the runway so any plane on that base couldn't fly. That was when he realized the Americans weren't just out to steal everything and kill everybody. And now years later, he is working with the Americans to rebuild the air force he used to fly for.

I guess killing them all and letting God sort them out isn't always the best idea. Disciplined restraint, even in the midst of big war, can pay off years down the road, even if it may frustrate some of your people at the time.

(One of the old, abandoned air fields we fly over has a row of bomb craters right down the center of the runway, one every 3000 feet or so. If you get on google earth and search around, you can probably see it. Pretty impressive.)