Notwithstanding personal opinons...

[GAHorn]

Notwithstanding certain personal opinons I harbor regarding prayer, political-motivations, military-service in general and officers in particular...
... I found this letter / prayer in the back leaf of a 1943 textbook on Aircraft Navigation, produced for the benefit of R.A.F. pilot-officers who were training in the U.S. at Seymour Johnson Field, N.C. and thought it worth sharing :

An Officers Prayer .pdf

(277.25 KiB) Downloaded 369 times

[Flyfshr]

Nice text. I wish all butter bars were instilled with this mentality.

BTW. What do you have against officers? It would be a waste for all those nice golf courses to go unused.

[blueldr]

George,
It sounds a little that you have a sort of a hard on for officers in the military. Is it possible that you were rejected for flight training in the military, or some such?
I spent twenty two years in the USAAF and the USAF and would have to admit that I did not simply adore all of the comissioned officers that I worked with and for, but over all we somehow seemed to muddle through and keep the "red menace" at arms length for a period of time.
I was a mechanic for Lockheed prior to our entry into WWII but I was also a high school drop out with a VERY limited formal education. Shortly after I enlisted in 1942, they lowered the requirements for entry into the pilot training program to allow we enlisted swine to take an examination which gave me an opportunity to become a wearer of, what at that time, was known as a pair of "Silver Leg Spreaders". I was expected to become a "Flying Sergeant" if I successully completed the training program.
However, the non comissioned pilot program was terminated during my period of training and the "Flight Officer" grade, a sort of warrant officer status, was started.
No one was more surprized than me when I graduated as a Second Lieutenant, a comissioned officer, no less. Needless to say, my opinion of comissioned officers was IMMEDIATELY changed for the better.
However, had the board of officers that I had to meet after passing the pilot entry examination, rejected my entry into the program, I am sure that I would have had a "hard on " for comissioned officers forever after. Fortunately that did not happen.
I did revert back to enlisted status after the big war and spent seven or eight years as a master sergeant before being recalled to my comissioned status during the Korean War. By that time I had become a sly SOB and I managed to retain my comission until the dirty bastards retired me. The USAF has been struggling ever since!
The gist of this rant is that I learned to stop hating officers when they started to let me fly their airplanes.

[GAHorn]

George,
It sounds a little that you have a sort of a hard on for officers in the military. Is it possible that you were rejected for flight training in the military, or some such?....

LOL... not, I was not rejected.

I have an older brother (Mel) who was commissioned during Viet Nam (Army - Ordinance Supply)
After his participation in a series of failed panty-raids at Texas A & I College, he found himself on scholastic-probation and called-up by our rich uncle for service in southeast Asia. Believing he had an "Ace up his sleeve", he appealed his selection to the Selective Service system, however our Father (Selective Service Appeals Judge) recused himself from my brother's appeal-board hearing and Mel found himself firmly drafted into the Army.
After observing his progress thru basic (Ft. Polk) and AIT (Ft. Leonard Wood), Mel managed to convince the dim wits in charge of the Army he truly had a permanent desire to be a career-officer and found himself posted to OCS (Aberdeen Proving Grounds) and graduated a 2nd Lt, Ordnance Supply. (His real motivation: to be posted to Red River Depot to be near his girlfriend and his college drinking buddies now-living in Texarkana.)

This charade is what helped me form my opinion of the system and it's officers, so I decided to keep my student deferment and stay in various schools (S.F. Austin State, Univ. of Houston) until 1969 when I foolishly married someone and had to drop out to pay the bills (aircraft-engine ovhl/assy-line, Precision Aeromotive, Houston.) Being 1-A promptly put me in front of Army doctors wearing rubber gloves and sitting in a room full of drop-outs and chimpanzees holding pencils taking Stanine tests.

I had read with interest my brother's activities (think of Don Rickles character in the movie "Hogan's Heros", trading artillery for booze) at Qang Tri with the Americal Division (20 clicks south of the DMZ) and realized that I'd better do my best performance during my pre-induction physical and aptitude testing if I wanted to avoid slogging thru swamps with leeches, and I had just finished those tests and had been promised flight training by the (doubtlessly-lying) recruiting officer when the lottery-system was enacted and I luckily drew lottery-number 354.

The near-miss encouraged me to get back into school and finish my degree (Baylor).

My opinion of most officers was mal-formed from that experience, and the attitudes harbored toward civilian pilots by ex-military-officers of a particular airline.

But mostly I'm just giving you a hard time...

[hilltop170]

...................I luckily drew lottery-number 354.........................

Well George, there's always somebody who's going to say, "That ain't nothin'.........................".

My draft number was 362.

I went into the Draft Board office in Dallas and asked the draft officer what my draft number meant. He told me, "Son, you don't have to worry about getting drafted unless we go into global-thermo-nuclear war, come to think of it, you don't have to worry about it then either, get outta here".

That was my entire military experience, except for when the Air Force and Navy recruiters both told me, after I graduated from college, I would never make a pilot wearing glasses and I would just love being a navigator. I had 750 hous at the time with single and multi ratings so I just laughed at them and walked out.

[GAHorn]

[...my ... military experience, ... when the Air Force and Navy recruiters both told me, ... I would never make a pilot wearing glasses and I would just love being a navigator. ....

So, Richard.... WHEN will you learn to NAVIGATE?

[4583C]

So, Richard.... WHEN will you learn to NAVIGATE? [/quote]

This from the guy who has been known to land in the wrong state??

[Blue4]

Thank you for posting that document. I'd like to share a more modern version used when I was flying bombers. I must warn everyone, its blasphemous and lighthearted. Here goes:


CREWDOG PRE-TAKEOFF PRAYER

Dear Lord

Please descend your most holy blessing upon this jet and your infallible servants in Maintenance thus averting any possibility of a bag drag and the associated cornucopia of sweat and pain. Look over my lunch and provide much peanut butter and fried chicken as I do your work. Please make my patch cord stead-fast in the execution of its most important duties and my DVD movies skip free as I bring your most holy democracy to the land of the heathen. Provide me with a righteous and most powerful auto-pilot, diligent in its execution, and unfailing in its altitude hold and flight director modes. I beseech your most holy guidance as my entire crew and I reject the temptation to defecate on the aircraft and slam closed the flatulent gates of hell from which my co-pilot seems to gain so much of his power. Bring us home with copious amounts of fuel to be flitted away in a mad impulse to dash faster than your most high speed of sound and enrage our most blessed tanker compatriots as we use all their extra gas to ensure we can attend Mongolian BBQ. Please ensure that the Movie Magic channel plays porn each morning and that my roommate is away on duty during its presentation. Finally, please ensure that I am free of responsibilities during each athletic event so that I may cover all my wretched nakedness with the bounty of free t-shirts available only to your most righteous servants. In your name we pray.

Amen

Times have changed, but people have not.
-Scott

[Blue4]

Wow, I'm a conversation killer. Or all you good people were taken in the rapture. If so, I hope you left your airplane keys in the airplane.

-S

[blueldr]

What a relatively pleasant surprise! Here it is the 22nd of May and when I woke up and looked out the back window this morning, the world was still here.
Thanks, George. I had plans for today.

[GAHorn]

You're WELCOME, Dick! (besides...He wouldn't end it all the day before my Birthday!
THAT MAKES IT A RED LETTER DAY!!!

[blueldr]

George,
Do you mean to tell me that you're having a birthday tomorrow, May 23rd? I just had one last Sunday, May 15th, my 89th, and my two beautiful daughters took me to my favorite resturant for dinner. It was an absolutely wonderful to be able to spend the time with them. Nancy, my youngset daughter, does not get home too often. She is a pilot for FedEx flying the Asian routes and now lives in Hong Kong. She was in the Phillppines for fifteen years and was moved to Hong Kong about two tears ago. Cheryle, my older daughter, lives near me so we see each other often.
At any rate, many happy returns on the anniversary of your birth. As the years go by, it doesn't seem to get any easier, but the alternative is not all that attractive either.

[GAHorn]

The Right Reverend Harold "Fruitcake" Camping* predicted the world would end at 5:59 PM (didn't mention a time-zone) on Saturday, May 21, 2011. It didn't, as you may have noticed.
My birthday was Sunday, May 22 (2:20 PM CST).

I've lobbied Doug to have it noted on the TIC170A Calendar to no effect. Perhaps if YOU would mention that we share the same month (along with Mother's Day and Memorial Day) it might have results?

Happy Birthdays to US, Dick!

(Even those unfamiliar with the Bible should have known Rev. Fruitcake didn't even take himself seriously...as he hadn't even given his employees the next week off, nor did he sell any of his $8 million in property and give it to the poor in order to grease his slide on the "rapture" as a benevolent person. He instead has kept all his wealth safely invested and available for his future use.)

((Oops... I'm revealing a few more of my "personal opinions".))

[johneeb]

((Oops... I'm revealing a few more of my "personal opinions".))

Ya think!!!

[GAHorn]

((Oops... I'm revealing a few more of my "personal opinions".))

Ya think!!!

It IS the topic of this thread, John....