McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

And what happened to their family after that is is horrible.

But there's also like there's Daniel Theriot, who is an F-18 Navy pilot who did bombing runs over Syria and many combat hours during her years as an F-18 pilot.

I met her in 2019 because a friend of mine who was a woman named Rosemary Mariner, who was a captain in the Navy, and she was in the first eight first class of eight women who would fly aircraft, who would fly combat not combat missions she fought to get women in combat she went to the hill all the time i became very close to rosemary she was the first practically the first person i ever met when i covered the pentagon they went on to lift the combat restrictions rosemary was very much behind that and whatever you all feel about that rosemary never wanted the women to have special treatment, she wanted them to have equal treatment.

And if you are in the military and you are not taking the same risks as the others, then you're not really looked at as an equal.

Before any of that, I trained as a computer engineer.

I built software for the avionics systems on F-18 fighter jets before I ever set foot in a hospital.

I mention that because it's going to matter later.

Engineers think about the body's warning systems a little differently than most physicians do, and I think that lens is quite useful here.

Go! Jeez.

You know, yeah, like the weather's gnarly, dude, and I'm like an F-18, you know what I mean? I got mad energy for days, man.

So I'm going to hang outside and ingest the atmosphere, you know what I'm saying? Enjoy the weather.

I don't even know what to say.

I was the commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 34, an F/A-18 Hornet squadron called the Blue Blasters, as you mentioned in the introduction.

And so we had recently returned from an extended combat deployment in the Arabian Gulf, and on that morning, I was actually sitting in an F-18.

My day started very, very early.

I don't remember the exact time, probably between 4:30, 5:00 we did a brief.

Trump was losing a rate of one per week.

And after seven weeks, they said, okay, we've had enough of this, plus they lost three F-18 aircraft.

And I guarantee the Pakistanis and Turks, they don't have greater capability than the U.S. when it comes to that.

So unless they're willing to try to put troops on the ground, and again, you're talking a major logistics operation to try to insert Turkish and Pakistani troops on the ground to engage the Houthis.

There you go.

Austin is a former F-18 pilot.

Our career did actually intersect for a little while.

I'm not sure exactly what year, I guess 2012, maybe late 2011.

Yeah.

So when I was a student in VFA 106, which is the Fleet Replacement Squadron, or the RAG as we call it, learning the F-18 for the first time amongst all the instructors I had there, you were one of them, specifically when I was going to the boat for the first time when you were acting as a landing signal officer.

So when I moved back, or not back, but when I moved to Austin, Texas, you were one of the few F-18 pilots that were here in town.

And so here we are.

And in 15 years of flying and fighters, I lost 16 buddies, not a single combat loss, bad weather, stupidity, mechanical issues, those in, in different order.

So, and then along the way, I've lost four F-18 brothers to suicide, uh, including my best friend.

He was a groomsman in my wedding, beautiful bride, five kid decided to, to check out.

And, uh, When that happened in 2020, I looked at my beautiful bride, Susie.