The Flight Deck

We all met in AOCS. Summer of 1987. As is common in our circles, we went different directions during training, but we always kept in touch and kept tabs on each other. When KB, Black Pat and I came back to Pensacola after primary flight training, Basher, Shaggy, Slinky and others were all up in Meridian. They often came down on the weekends (P’Cola being a bit more fun then Meridian) and we had many “epic” adventures.

Then we all finished flight school and went to the fleet. Everyone but Basher. He got selected to SERGRAD – stay in Meridian and instruct. We gave him grief about that at every opportunity because that was what we did.

KB, Slinky, Shaggy and I all went to Virginia Beach, and Basher would often use Cross country training flights with students in his Orange and White A-4 as an excuse to visit and hang out. We told him he could come up to a real base anytime he wanted to and we might even let him see a grey airplane sometime.

When we all rolled out of our fleet squadrons and went to be instructors, he finally got to the fleet. He was a Pukin’ Dog and loved it. And they loved him. Basher was a big boy and his RIO was equally large. They used to joke that if they ever had to eject, the seats would go up the rails about 6 inches and then settle back down into the jet again.

After his first Tomcat tour, he ended up at LSO school. I finished my time as an instructor and needed somewhere to go for a while until I joined my next Air Wing which was currently at sea. JT was to OIC of the school and said I could come work for him. Basher and Hags and I were the minions. I’ve never had so much fun. Somewhere along the way, we discovered that he had been enlisted in the Coast Guard prior to AOCS. We gave him so much shit about that he stopped even trying to fight back.

I rolled to Carrier Air Wing ONE as one of two CAG LSOs. The other LSO was Shaggy. Our office was right down the hall from the school and we spent a lot of time down there.

At the end of my tour and my time on active duty, Basher was my replacement as CAG LSO. He was a great LSO and well loved by the wing.

After his CAG LSO job, he was assigned to Commander, Naval Air Forces US Atlantic Fleet (AIRLANT) as the head LSO on the East Coast. On September 11th, he ended up jumping on a helo to go out and join USS George Washington as she steamed north to protect New York and Washington. He spent the whole day on the LSO platform waving jets that showed up about every 15 minutes as they were fueled, armed, and sent to sea from the beach.

After AIRLANT, Basher reported back to the Pukin’ Dogs for his department head tour. Before he left on cruise, Basher, Hags and I made a lunch date, but for some reason or other it fell apart and both Hags and I didn’t make it.

On March 3, 2002, I was at home and the phone rang. It was Shaggy.

“Hi Nose it’s Shag, you need to sit down.”

“What’s up?”

“We lost Basher.”

I didn’t speak, so he went on.

“Not many details yet, cat shot, RIO’s OK. Basher got out of the jet but either the seat malfunctioned or he was out of the envelope.” (Meaning out of the safe ejection parameters for the seat).

I told him thanks, hung up the phone and cried hard for about 15 minutes.

The memorial service was one of the hardest things I have ever been through. At the Chapel at Oceana, I sat in a pew with JT and Hags, we all worked real hard at not crying. One of the eulogies was by his former CAG from CAG 1 who happened to mention that he was very proud of his prior service as a Coast Guardsman. The wives in the pew in front of us were shocked and upset at our uncontrolled giggling.

Everyone knows someone who is bigger than life. The guy that everyone knows. Good looking, funny, confident without being self-centered. Basher was at least two of those guys. Everyone knew him, everyone liked him. It’s easy to say that about someone when they are gone, but when it came to Basher, it was true. I don’t think I ever heard anyone say a bad thing about him.

It’s Memorial Day and today I honor Basher. Basher was a great husband to Jodi, a great father to Max and Jack, a great Fighter Pilot, a great LSO, a great teacher, a great friend, and I’m pretty sure that he was a great Coast Guardsman (not that there is anything wrong with that.)