Viper Pilot_ A Memoi..

of passage and a tradition. So, during the Feast of San Fermin, a weeklong festival
emerged and the bulls were run every morning. Any excuse for a party, right
Technically, we were prohibited from doing this, because several hundred
people were hurt each year and a few were even killed. But there’s no quicker way
to provoke a fighter pilot than to tell him something is prohibited. I remember the
fireworks and the thousands of red bandannas and flags flying everywhere. Some
of the locals were barefoot and wore baggy peasant outfits, all white, no doubt to
see the blood better. I also recall sprinting with the crowd (all men and all young
enough to be that stupid) through the narrow, uneven streets. This wasn’t so bad, I
thought, then something bobbed past my head at eye level and I realized it was a
horn. So I zigged over to the nearest wall and managed to scramble up most of the
way. A few hands appeared to help me into the beautiful, and extremely thorny,
rosebushes on the other side.
So why risk your eyes and balls, not to mention your career and life, to dash
around in front of enraged bulls Because it was there, of course. Besides, in
college I’d read The Sun Also Rises, and if Ernest Hemingway had done it then I
had to do it as well. So much for the positive effects of literature in higher
education.
All in all, it was a terrific time. Fast jets, European travel, and the constant
challenge of staying alive. Other life-altering events, like marriage, children, and
war, were still in the future. I had my hands full but I also had the advantages of
first-rate instructors and a young squadron commander who took an interest in my
career. I upgraded to four-ship flight lead as a lieutenant and was approved to begin
instructor-pilot training in the fall of 1990.
That all changed rather quickly in August, when a dictator I’d never heard of,
named Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait. As I tried to locate Iraq on a map,
vacations were canceled and all upgrades were halted. A few of us who spoke
French were sent to France to talk with pilots who’d actually trained the Iraqis. We
came back smelling like cheese but feeling relieved. I mean, Arabs taught by
Frenchmen Come on. Tactical analyses appeared from Nellis AFB, CIA country
studies showed up from someplace in the Virginia countryside, and we all got busy
as the future rapidly became the present.
The Wild Weasels were going back to war.