The “Best of the Best”

In high school, Todd wasn’t the worst of students, but he wasn’t the best of students either. He earned A’s in metal shop and P.E., but only C’s and an occasional B in math and science — primarily because he didn’t like these classes, so he didn’t try very hard. His real passion was watching top-fuel dragsters — racing cars that could go from zero to over 200 miles per hour in a matter of seconds. He spent a lot of time daydreaming about being on the crew of a national champion dragster and sometimes dreamt of driving one some day.

In the middle of his junior year of high school, Todd announced that he wasn’t going to college. “What’s the point?” he said. “I don’t really like school, but I do like working on cars. I’ll be a mechanic. I’ll like what I do, and I’ll make good money. Maybe some day I’ll get to work on a race car.” It all made sense; it was a logical plan.

All of that changed, though, the day he went to see the movie Top Gun. It was about a Navy fighter pilot who was selected to go to an elite school called Top Gun. Only the “best of the best” went there. The movie had great scenes taken from the cockpit of an F-14. Todd was mesmerized as he watched. Flying a jet fighter at over 1,000 miles per hour made riding in a racing car look tame.

His daydreams started to change. Instead of seeing himself in a race car, he began to imagine himself as a Navy fighter pilot. “What a life that must be,” he thought, “flying off an aircraft carrier in a supersonic jet. What would it take to do that?”

For a while he didn’t dare tell anyone. But finally at dinner one night, he mentioned to his dad and stepmother that he had been thinking about being a pilot. As soon as he told them, he wanted to take it back. He was embarrassed that he had said anything to anyone. To his surprise, they actually encouraged him. “Give it a try. You can do it,” they said. That night, probably for the first time, Todd began to think seriously about the possibility of being a fighter pilot. If someone else thought it was possible, maybe it really was.

His first challenge was academic. He found out that the Navy was looking for people with an engineering degree. But first he had to actually get into a good college and then he had to earn the degree. These were big steps. But he set his sights high nonetheless — the University of Colorado, one of the best engineering schools in the country. He knew he couldn’t get in right away because he lacked the prerequisite courses, but he discovered that he could get into an open-enrollment state college in Denver. And, if his grades were good enough, he could transfer to the engineering school at the University of Colorado in a few years.

During his time at the state college, he found out everything he could about the academic and physical requirements he would have to meet to get into the Navy’s pilot training program. One big obstacle was his vision. The Navy required perfect 20/20 vision. Todd’s eyesight was good but not that good. But like everything he had approached since he decided to shoot for the Navy, Todd had a plan for overcoming this obstacle as well. He saved his money and purchased a program of eye exercises designed to improve his vision. Even though it was physically uncomfortable to do the exercises, Todd never missed a session.

Todd approached his college classes in a manner that was totally different from his approach in high school. He threw himself into his work, studied diligently, and managed his time to the minute. After two years, he had done so well that he applied and was accepted into the University of Colorado’s engineering school — just what he had wanted. Four years later, he graduated with honors, earning a degree in aerospace engineering. Along the way he was inducted into a highly prestigious engineering honor society and earned his private pilot’s license, receiving a score of 100 on the Federal Aviation examination — a feat that surprised even his instructor. Shortly after graduation, Todd found out that he was one of only about a half dozen candidates from Colorado accepted into the U.S. Navy’s Aviator Officer Candidate School, or AOCS as it was called, the Navy’s first step to becoming a fighter pilot.

When Todd left Denver to attend AOCS in Pensacola, Florida, he knew that the obstacles he would face were great. He knew that about 50% of the young men and women accepted into the program dropped out within the first two months and many others were asked to leave. The one thing he promised himself was that he would not give up, no matter what happened. They could kick him out, but he would never quit.

As a result, he put 100% of his effort into everything he was told to do. Nothing could dampen his resolve. Not the long hours in the classroom, the intense physical training that left him exhausted at the end of the day, or the fatigue he felt from sleeping only about six hours per night. He wasn’t even deterred by the drill instructors constantly yelling at the officer candidates or the fact that he missed his home and family some 2,000 miles away. His resolve paid off. He graduated from AOCS as one of the top officer candidates and was commissioned into the Navy as an ensign.

The next step was flight school. This is where the biggest decision about his future would be made. Not all Navy pilots were asked to fly jets. In fact, to fly jets, he had to finish in the top 20% of his class during the first phase of flight school, called Primary Flight School. Anyone who wasn’t in the top 20% would be assigned to fly propeller aircraft or helicopters. Although these were neat aircraft, he had joined to fly jets — that was his goal.

There were days during Primary Flight School when he was discouraged; he sometimes thought that he just couldn’t try anymore and wondered if he was really good enough. But he told himself he would stick with his plan. He would give 100% to everything, no matter what happened to him. Again, his persistence paid off. He not only finished in the top 20% of his class, but he finished at the very top of his class and was assigned to fly jet fighters.

The first day Todd flew a jet fighter was like a dream. He had a hard time believing that he was actually in the cockpit of a multimillion-dollar airplane. It was even better than he had imagined. He could fly upside down, point the nose of the plane straight up, and fly right through a cloud. But what he liked most was flying low to the ground — 500 feet off the ground at 500 miles per hour. At that speed and at that altitude, trees were nothing but a green blur.

But flying a jet fighter was not all fun and games. The big test for Navy fighter pilots was to land on an aircraft carrier. Todd knew that sometimes even pilots who had performed extremely well up to that point in their training still couldn’t master the art of landing a jet in a space that was only 300 feet in length on the back of a ship, while coming in at 150 miles per hour. It seemed impossible. But finally the big day came when he flew his jet out to sea 100 miles off the coast of San Diego.

As he approached this point in his career, he suddenly realized just how far he had come. He wasn’t watching a movie about a Navy pilot, he was a Navy pilot. But first he had to prove himself by overcoming this last and most difficult obstacle.

As he had been taught, he lined his plane up behind the carrier. He was amazed at just how small the carrier looked and how quickly he was coming down — 2,000 feet away, 500 feet off the water; 1,000 feet away, 300 feet off the water. He knew that the eyes of every sailor on the ship were on him, and he knew that he had no margin for error — 4 feet too high or 4 feet too low, and he would fail. In another instant, he was 500 feet away and 100 feet off the water; then he was almost there, almost there, and then, bam — he could feel the hook at the back of his plane catch one of the four cables at the back of the ship. His plane went from 150 miles per hour to zero in less than two seconds, jarring every bone in his body. But he had done it. He had passed the final test for a Navy pilot.

The next phase of Todd’s career was more than he had ever hoped for. After receiving his Navy wings of gold, he was assigned to fly a $36-million F/A-18, the newest jet in the Navy. He served on board the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Carl Vinson and was engaged in combat in the Persian Gulf. However, the greatest thrill of his life was still to come. Because of his superb record as a fighter pilot, he was selected to go to Top Gun. In September of 1999, Todd graduated from the school that took only “the best of the best.” The movie he saw, the dreams he had dreamed, had become his life.

Todd is now serving our country in the War on Terrorism. He is again at sea, flying combat missions into Afghanistan and recently received a Navy Air Medal for his combat performance.

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