They Grow Up So Fast

Now that you've got me wandering down Memory Lane, I've got to give a shoutout to one character that deserves some ID4 press. I first met Scott when he was one of my students in tech school. Here was a guy I knew could be trouble...I could tell he was much smarter than me, but to my amazement, he rarely held that against me. I had enough challenges in that larger than usual class...he'd eventually become the field trainer for his classmate who would be the only student I'd ever regret letting graduate.

But enough about that retard...if there was ever a reward for being a technical training school instructor, it would be delayed gratification. I still hear from former trainees who've kicked butt, then gone on to tackle other dreams, but Scott is one of the few who's thrived in the bluesuit environment.

Scott pretty much had a production flight working the way he liked it when I showed up in Korea in 2001. I was shuffled off to Able Flight merely to balance the distribution of Senior NCOs (Scott was a Tech Sergeant at the time), but I knew the scuttlebutt was that I was the guy chosen to give Scott potty breaks. Yup, on my final tour, I was waived from all linguist duties! I got the fast track to Ground Mission Supervisor without having to qualify on the linguist rack and was handed the reins to the production team...which I handled oh, so lightly...cuz it wasn't broke. Okay...I admit I played with it a bit.

It was way cool to see Scott get Inducted to SNCO-hood. I'd already been shuffled off to Operations Training (so much for Scott's potty breaks!) but I didn't make it any secret what my favorite flight was when it came to augmenting the mission. Now I've heard that Scott is representing the whole career field at the the Five-Sided Circus. It couldn't be in better hands.