My Holaday Retrospective: How playing football for OUWAFC and hanging with the Iffley and Manny Road boys prepared me for life in an Air Force flying squadron.

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the Alberta Bart Holaday Scholarship, the scholarship which allowed me the incredible experience of getting to live and study in Oxford for two of the most amazing years of my life. To mark the 10th anniversary, all of the Scholars have been asked to write a retrospective on their time in Oxford. The prompt was very broad and basically allowed us to write whatever we wanted. Since football played such a huge role in my life in Oxford, it was pretty obvious I was going to write about football. This is what I came up with. If anyone has any insights as to changes that I should make (particularly if I made any grammatical or spelling mistakes-- don't want the guy who thought I was smart enough to get his scholarship to reconsider-- although I guess its too late now!) please let me know.

“Some people say football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, its much more serious than that.” Legendary Liverpool coach Bill Shankly expressed this sentiment and, as both a serious footballer and a Liverpool supporter, I agree wholeheartedly. But while growing up in the United States, where “football” is a sport played primarily with your hands and a lemon shaped object quite generously referred to as a ball, I was often in the minority when it came to my love of the sport that the rest of the world calls football. This is just one of the many reasons that I was excited to learn that, through the generosity of Mr. Bart Holaday, I would be given the opportunity to study at Oxford University as a member of Exeter College. I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in the culture that understands, appreciates, and literally invented the game of football. In my time at Oxford, I spent an admittedly excessive amount of time playing football for the Oxford University Women’s Association Football Club Blues first team, Mansfield Road Football Club, a city team in a regional league, and for the Oxfordshire County Representative squad. In that time, football provided me exposure to the British culture and was the lens through which I viewed that culture. Furthermore, my experiences with British football provided me with tools and skills that have already helped me in my Air Force career. 

Upon first joining the Oxford football scene, the hardest adjustment was merely picking up the changes in vocabulary. Rather than preparing to play a game in a uniform and cleats on the soccer field I was instead getting ready for a match in kit and boots on the football pitch. Once I figured out all the terminology, I was able to look deeper and see how the culture of football specifically, and sport in general, revealed aspects of British culture and its differences from American. In both America and the United Kingdom, football is religion (albeit their definitions of football cause that religion to be two different sports). People live and die with the successes and failures of their clubs. Passion for sports and the deep seated and bitter rivalries that sports encourage are the same in every country. Whether it be Liverpool vs. Everton in the Merseyside Derby or the Packers against the Vikings, the yearly contests between the Oxford and Cambridge athletic teams or the annual Commanders in Chief competition between the American service academies, the passion and excitement of a well fought rivalry victory doesn’t fade even years after the game has been played. From kickoff to the final whistle, everyone in the stadium is united in their desire for one thing: a victory for their club. Sports transcend religion, class, and social and economic divisions, and that is consistent in every country I have ever been to.

However in the world of college sports, there are some extreme differences between the United States and UK. In the United States, sport plays a tremendous role in university life, bringing significant revenue to the school. College athletes are highly recruited and competition is fierce between universities as to which one can sign the country’s top prep athletes. College athletes are supposedly amateurs, yet countless scandals of American football players being paid under the table for their services belies this idea of amateurism in American university athletics. However at Oxford, with the exception of a small handful of Rugby players and rowers, I didn’t know anyone who chose Oxford University for its athletic program. The focus is primarily academics, with athletics being a distant second. Sport at university is about fun, fitness, and social involvement, not about preparing for a career in the professional leagues. As much as I loved and valued my college athletics career, seeing how university sports are handled in the UK has revealed that there are fundamental problems with the balance between sports and academics in American institutions of higher education. 

I have always played soccer/football for the love of the game. Sports have provided me with opportunities to grow, learn, and develop life and leadership skills, but that has always been a secondary benefit of athletic participation. While in Oxford, though this was not my intention when joining my football clubs, my football career exposed me to environments and gave me experiences that I have directly built on during my admittedly short Air Force career. In my second year in Oxford, I had the honor of captaining the University Women’s Football team. While I had been captain of the team at the Academy and therefore thought I knew what to expect, captaining Oxford was an entirely different experience. Due primarily to the previously mentioned emphasis on University sport, the women’s football team is entirely student run and led. I was responsible not only for the on-field leadership of the team, but also for many other tasks, including hiring a coach, holding tryouts, selecting a team, booking and organizing practice locations, arranging for transportation to and from matches, purchasing, organizing, and washing the team uniforms, organizing the yearly match between Oxford and Cambridge (which included arranging lodging for the squad, and all of the other logistics for the event), and finally selecting the team and lineup for each individual match. This experience of running a student and athletic organization helped me tremendously in my role as class leader of my UPT class at Sheppard AFB. I have built on what I learned as the women’s captain and have been able to adequately handle the job of class leader with no undue stresses or difficulties. 

 

Additionally, the culture of football in the United Kingdom prepared me for the culture of an Air Force flying squadron. In the UK, football is predominantly a man’s game. While almost every British boy grows up with a football permanently attached to his foot, the girls in the UK more commonly grow up playing field hockey or netball (a version of basketball). So by joining the football world in England, I was jumping into an environment dominated by males: testosterone riddled, competitive, results-driven males. I never would have thought that the hours I spent playing 5-a-side matches with my guy friends or in pubs watching football with the members of the University and Mansfield Road men’s teams would prepare me for my Air Force career, but, in a way, they prepared me almost as much as any professional military education I have received thus far. While women are afforded many great opportunities in the Air Force, the flying world is still predominantly dominated by males. There are no other females in my UPT class and there is not a single female T-38 Instructor Pilot at Sheppard AFB. I am constantly surrounded by the same type of competitive and results-driven men in my flying squadron as I was in the pubs and on the pitches of Oxford. Learning how to be a woman in a man’s world while in Oxford made the adjustment to life in the Air Force remarkably easy and smooth. 

Coming to Oxford was everything I dreamed about and more. From the engineering classroom to the football pitches; from the libraries to the stadiums, the education I received in and out of the classroom was first rate and I learned more than I could possibly have imagined. I have already put what I learned in Oxford to good use and I hope to continue to do so throughout my Air Force career. All of my memories of my time spent under the dreaming spires will be with me forever. 

Its the little things...

Tomorrow marks the 1 year anniversary of my return to the states. Its been quite a year and not a day goes by that I don't miss Oxford. My time in Ox had a huge impact on me and changed me in ways that I couldn't imagine before I left the states just over 3 years ago. Before I came back I knew there would be many things I would miss about Ox including my friends, football, being so close to London, and the beautiful and enchanting city itself. But, in the past year, I have realized there are so many little things that I miss about being in Ox that I didn't even realize I would miss until they were no longer there. Here is a small sampling of those things (with some of my fav Oxford photos interspersed):

--Being called "love" in shops or on the street. Here you sometimes get "darlin'" but "love" was great. I miss being called "mate" as well.
--People putting an "x" at the end of a text or facebook message. The few times I forgot who I'm texting and accidentally did that here just got weird and awkward...

--Having people say "PREM-ier" (emphasis on the first syllable) league rather than "Pre-MEER" league. Or calling them "United" and "City" rather than "Man U" and "Man City."
--Coffee and sandwich shops on every corner and places to go, sit, and work/study. In particular I miss the Alternate Tuck Shop and the two shops in the Covered Market for sandwiches and I miss Queens Lane Coffee House and Nero on High Street as study places.

--Men's fashion. I never thought I'd say this when I first got there but I miss guys wearing weird coloured trousers and blazers (or pretty much anything apart from jeans with t-shirts or polo shirts and trainers)
--People walking around town with one pant leg rolled up in their sock because they were cycling and forgot to roll it back down

--People non-ironically wearing tweed and flatcaps. And routinely seeing people in that sort of outfit walking down the road (probably with their plant leg rolled up as seen above) muttering to themselves like an absolute crazy person.
--Percy Pigs, Ben's Cookies, Kopparberg Mixed Fruit, breakfast at Spoons post training, Indian food, and Shepherds Pie

--Ordering tea and being asked "milk and sugar?" rather than "regular or sweet?" and having it be implied its iced
--White cheddar cheese that doesn't cost twice as much as yellow cheddar and that actually has flavor. The "medium" cheese in the UK was equivalent of "extra sharp" here and interesting cheese is super expensive here.

--Being able to watch Rugby. Had never seen a rugby match before I got to Ox but thanks mostly to Matt and Leon, I now really enjoy watching it and obviously can't find it anywhere!
--The Poppy Appeal every November. You get a few places around here with poppies for VFW but its nowhere near the same.

--A real honest-to-goodness English pub that doesn't have a single red phone booth or underground sign or Union flag anywhere to be seen and has more than just 3 beers on tap and that actually calls beers beer and lagers lager.

And since of course life isn't all bad, here are a smattering of things I don't necessarily miss (with some photos from since I came back):

--Having to buy new jeans simply because the inner thighs have holes in them from being worn down from rubbing on the bicycle seat
--Stochastic model predictive control and MATLAB (ugh... shudder.....)

--Feeling bad when I didn't buy the Big Issue
--Being caught in the rain while cycling somewhere and having to spend the whole rest of the day soaking wet

--Hoards of tourists and student groups descending enmasse into town during certain times of year thereby making it completely impossible to get where you need to go
--Christmas starting mid-October because they have nothing to celebrate in between Halloween and Christmas

--Being forced to watch college football via sketchy streaming (or via webcam pointed at my parent's TV at home) in the middle of the night by myself because once Neal left nobody else cared about American Football

There are probably many more things that don't immediately spring to mind but on the whole, I'm glad I spent two and a half amazing years in Oxford, but I'm also glad I'm back in the states getting to do some pretty amazing things here too. I love all my Oxford friends (oh who am I kidding, my Oxford FAMILY) so much and miss you guys like crazy and can't wait until I next get to come back and visit!

Thanksgiving Weekend with the McBrides-- or me geeking out over space stuff

Thanksgiving has always been a family holiday for me and when I went to England I was afraid that Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same spending it away from family. Instead, I gained an incredible new tradition of spending Thanksgiving with my Oxford football family with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd annual OUWAFC Thanksgiving Extravaganzas. So naturally I was again fearful that, seeing as it was far too expensive to go home for just a few days over Thanksgiving, I wouldn't have any family to spend Thanksgiving with this year. I was saved by my amazing Basic Training roommate Vicki McBride when she invited me to Wichita to spend Thanksgiving with her, her husband Tim, and their other guests.

I drove up to Wichita on Wednesday after my first T-38 Sim (landed it on my first try :) ) and we stayed up way too late chatting and catching up. Also I got to "fangirl" a bit by looking at all the memorabilia that Tim has from his brother Brian (of the Columbus Crew/US mens national team/Everton/Fulham/Chicago Fire fame). Highlight was the jersey that Brian was wearing in the 2006 World Cup against Italy when he got is face bashed in by the elbow of Daniel De Rossi. It had obviously been washed but you could clearly see the bloodstains-- so cool!!

Thursday was Thanksgiving and I played Sous Chef to Vicki as she cooked up a great Thanksgiving feast of turkey, mash, sweet potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, homemade cranberry sauce, rolls, and cookies. It was nice to meet Vicki's squadmates and friends in Wichita and enjoy the holiday together. (And of course eat way too much food...)

On Friday Vicki and I drove to Hutchinson to visit the Cosmosphere, a space museum. Seeing as it was in the middle of Kansas, I didn't have much in terms of expectations but BOY WAS I WRONG! It was incredible!!! We spent ALL DAY at the museum and I could have stayed even longer.

The museum began in World War II with an exhibit about German rocketry, using that as the starting point of the space age. I learned loads about the V-1 and V-2 rockets that terrorized the population of Britain and learned a lot about the German infrastructure that created these rockets. Some intersting facts I learned:
-Werner Von Braun was imprisoned by the Nazis because he was too concerned with his rocketry research (looking for ways to get his rockets to space) and not concerned enough with militarizing them to support the Nazi cause. Its only because he was good friends with an influential general that he escaped execution for treason.
-The V-1 rocket (more of a flying bomb with a rocket motor than your stereotypical rocket) terrorized Britain in the beginning of the war but the Brits soon developed ways to fight against it. The most interesting was "rocket tipping": A British fighter would fly up next to the V-1, maneuver its wing underneath the wing of the rocket, then do an aileron roll. The aileron roll would impart a spin onto the V-1, causing it to go completely off-course and (hopefully) miss the centre of London.
-The Brits also succeeded in turning the German spies who were living in London and reporting back to the Nazis about where their rockets were landing. While the rockets were actually hitting directly where the Nazis wanted them, the recently turned spies reported back that they rockets were landing well east of the city, causing the Nazis to change their calculations and consequently make their rockets less accurate than they originally had been.
-Both the V-1 and V-2 were silent as they fell towards earth, albeit for different reasons. At the start of the V-1's descent, the change in pitch attitude was so drastic that the negative-Gs would cause the engine to sputter out and die, making the rocket fall silently down to earth. The V-2, on the other hand, traveled faster than its own sound waves, making it silent. The silent impact of the V-2 actually led Londoners to initially believe the large explosions were caused my gas leaks rather than bombs.

The V-1 "Buzz Bomb"

A Spitfire "Rocket Tipping"

From the World War II section it went into a Cold War section which described the way in which the Americans and Soviets fought over the German rocket program and it highlighted the men in charge of the space programs on each side. The German rocket scientists knew the end was imminent but most of them were committed to the science they had been studying and wanted it to get into the right hands. Many of the scientists followed Von Braun's suggestion that they stick together and surrender (along with their technology) to the US soldiers. This was in direct disagreement to the decision made at Yalta that the technology discovered in the area that the US or the Soviets were to control would belong to that occupying nation. The headquarters of the rocketry was in the Soviet area but the American's smuggled out almost all of the technology and most of the scientists, leaving very little for the Soviets when they arrived.

Interesting comparison between Sergei Korolev and Werner Von Braun, the two men in charge of the Soviet and US space programs, respectively. Can't really read it though... sorry

 From then on it became more of your typical "space museum", chronicling the history of the two space programs from the launch of Sputnik all the way through to the current commercial space interestest of Virgin Galactic and Space-X. Some highlights included:

Gus Grisson's Liberty Bell 7 Mercury Capsule:
Guss Grissom piloted America's second (suborbital) space flight but once he has splashed down his door malfunctioned and the explosive charge blew before he activated it and before the rescue craft was ready to recover the vehicle. Water began leaking into the capsule and Grisson had to be pulled out to keep from drowning. The helicopter tried to lift the capsule but the increased weight from the water threated to take down the helicopter and so the capsule was dropped to the bottom of the ocean and NASA failed to recover it.

In the investigation of what happened, Grissom swore that he had down nothing wrong and that the hatch just blew. However, with no reason to expect a malfunction and no craft to test, most engineers failed to believe Grissom. Grissom died in launchpad test fire of Apollo 1 and there were many who, until his death, believed that he had messed up and been responsible for the loss of the craft.

In 1999 the Cosmosphere decided to (with the help of the Discover Channel) sponsor a search for Liberty Bell 7 and, against terrible odds, discovered her on the ocean floor. They dragged her and restored the capsule for display in the museum. Examination of the craft led scientists to believe that blowing the hatch would have required extreme force and doing so would have left obvious bruise marks on Grissom, which he didn't have following the mission. The investigation led scientists to believe that Grissom had been truthful when he said he hadn't caused the hatch to open and he was vindicated. Interesting footnote: Grissom went on to be the commander of Gemini III and he named this capsule "Molly Brown"

Liberty Bell 7

Gemini X: This Gemini capsule was piloted by John Young (who would go on to be the commander of the first Space Shuttle mission) and Michael Collins (who would become the Command Module Pilot onboard Apollo 11).

Gemini X

Apollo 13 Command Module: The Odyssey
Everyone knows the story of Apollo 13 and if you don't, what rock have you been living under! The Cosmosphere had the restored Odyssey Command Module in which the Apollo 13 crew made their return to earth. SO COOL!

The Odyssey

Inside the Odyssey

Some of the Mission Control computers from the Apollo Mission control:
These computers were used by the Flight Docs to monitor the medical status on the astronauts on the Apollo missions.

Moon rock: Just what it sounds like, its a moon rock.

There was too much stuff to actually be able to explain everything we saw but I will post more photos on Facebook and you can take a look at those.

Vicki and I just chilled and caught up some more on Friday night and on Saturday morning and I headed back to the Falls midday on Saturday. It was really great to get to see Vicki and Tim again. It had been 2 years since I had seem them at their wedding and that was far too long! Hopefully I will get to see them again sometime soon. I'm so thankful for great friends all over the country and world and for people like Tim and Vicki who opened their home to me so I could spend a holiday with my ever growing and expanding "family."

My "midterm break" if you will-- trip to Boston

So when last I wrote I had just started formation. Since then I have COMPLETED my time flying the T-6 and I am halfway done with pilot training!! Formation was really fun and really rewarding-- it was pretty incredible to know that I am capable of flying in close formation (10 feet away from another aircraft) and am also capable of doing aerobatic maneuvers to include barrel rolls and cloverleafs in formation with another aircraft. To finish up the T-6 we did 2-ship low level in which we flew 500 ft above the ground, 200 knots airspeed, in formation with another aircraft. It was cool to get to put everything together at the end of the program and demonstrate everything we had learned.

Because we pushed ahead of the schedule midway through T-6, we were actually quite fortunate to finish our T-6 training about 2 weeks early. Because we didn't have anything scheduled until our centrifuge training, we got some time off. So I chose to go to Boston to visit Anson for a few days.

I arrived Thursday evening and hung around MIT while Anson was finishing working on a big group project for one of his urban planning courses. We then went back to his house and the next day while he was at school presenting the project I took his advice and visited Mt Auburn cemetery. The cemetery was consecrated in 1831 and was the first "garden cemetery" in the country. The cemetery now stretches over 174 acres and serves as both a cemetery and an arboretum. 

Famous "residents" include Edwin Booth (well known and respected Shakespearean actor and brother of John Wilkes Booth), Dorothea Dix (nurse and hospital reformer), Fannie Farmer (the cookbook author), Buckminster Fuller (scientist and architect and interesting character), Winslow Homer (artist), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poet), prominent Boston family the Lowells, Bernard Malamud (author) and many others.

I ran to and from the cemetery and then after showering I walked to MIT to meet Anson. I wandered around Cambridge a bit, crossing over the Harvard Bridge and admiring the beauty of the Charles. It was interesting to walk around Harvard and MIT and be reminded of the what its like wandering around a university campus. It brought back a lot of memories from Oxford and made me really nostalgic. 

Once I met up with Anson we got on our bikes (I used the citywide bike system of Hubway) and we rode up to Prospect Hill and the Prospect Hill Monument. It gave us a great view of the city of Boston but sadly the monument was closed and we weren't able to climb it.

On Friday evening we went to the Thirsty Scholar (a pub now famous for being the location of the opening scene of The Social Network) and met up with Johan. It was great catching up with Jonah and it was crazy to think about how long all of us had known each other. Johan and Anson went to school together through 2nd grade, Jonah and I were in the same class my 4th grade (his 3rd grade) year, Johan and Anson went to middle school together, and we all did the same internship at the Human Relations Commission. After a little while we were joined by an Academy 2012er Casey Horgan who was a JINSA traveller with me the summer after graduation. She is currently at MIT and we got to talk a bit about UPT and I gave her my incredible wisdom and knowledge....


The next morning, we (along with Anson's roommate Subra) got on the Downeastern Train to Portland Maine. Anson wanted to ride the train and we thought it would be fun to go to Maine. It was a really nice ride and Portland was a cute little town. We had lunch at an "Irish pub" and then wandered around the town a bit before touring the Maine Mead Works and getting to taste some of the mead. It was really good and much better than I expected. It was an interesting way to spend the day but an enjoyable. We shared the train ride back with many Justin Bieber fans who were traveling to Boston for his concert and we enjoyed watching them and seeing how excited they were for the concert. Also ridiculous were the number of limousines we saw pulling up to the TD Bank Garden for the show. These parents really went all out for their kid's night out!

 On Sunday morning we relaxed a bit and caught up on the sleep that we had missed out on over the past few days. Once we had sufficiently recovered we went to the JFK museum. I have always been really fascinated by JFK, his personal story, his presidency, and his legacy. I love his polities and the causes that he was passionate about, but I can't seem to reconcile his personality flaws and his womanizing with the clear devotion he had to his wife and family. Personal issues aside, the museum was really interesting, very well done, and I really enjoyed it. Another cool part of the museum was the exhibit which featured Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 capsule, the capsule in which he became the first American in space. As a self-professed space geek this was obviously very cool for me to see. I learned quite a bit about Kennedy (as well as his family and the legacy of his siblings) and all of the programs and events that happened because of him and his legacy.

We left the museum and went to MIT for the annual Diwali celebration. This included Indian food and a show that included traditional dancing, singing, music, and even an example of acapella mashups between traditional Indian songs and One Direction and Adele! The show was really interesting and fun, despite the horrible corny jokes of the emcees.

On Monday, before heading off to the airport, Anson and I rode down to the Beacon Hill neighborhood and wandered around. Beacon Hill is the richest area and in our walk we saw Senator John Kerry's house, Louisa May Alcott's former house, the registered voting address of JFK, and the Massachusetts Statehouse. We then met Jonah and his girlfriend Kathy for lunch and then I headed off to the airport and back to Wichita Falls. It was a fun couple of days spent in an awesome city with a great old friend and a very needed break after the busy hecticness of pilot training.

Another pilot training update

When I last posted on this blog I had just started the instrument phase of flight so that is where I will pick up with this post.

My class, 13-05

Instrument flying is how pilots fly in bad weather, at night, when visibility is limited, etc. This is done solely by looking at and relying on your flight instruments and not using any external references at all. In order to simulate this we wear a funny looking hood on our helmets that keeps us from seeing all outside references and forces us to focus on the instruments. Instrument flying is very slow, very methodical, and almost completely opposite from contact flying. This is, in many ways, extremely boring and is based on lots of procedures and step by step lists to follow. While the flying itself is pretty boring, the instrument phase is when we actually got to leave the confines of the Sheppard AFB bubble and fly out-and-backs to other airfields.

A large part of the Instrument phase is cross-country where we take the weekend and fly somewhere about 600 miles away from Sheppard for the weekend. For my cross-country I went with 4 flightmates up to Denver, Colorado. On Friday we flew to Denver via Lubbock, TX and we flew back on Sunday via Amarillo, TX. On Saturday we got to fly VFR (basically just navigating from point to point with no set flight plan or directions and not under the control of any air traffic control authority) through the mountains of Colorado. For those who know the area, we flew from Denver, down south past Castle Rock and Monument, past the Air Force Academy, around Pikes Peak, through the Royal Gorge, around past Buena Vista and Breckenridge, and landed at Eagle County Airport in Vail. It was the coolest flying I had done thus far.

 My jet at Centennial Airport, CO

 Eagle County Airport, Vail, CO

Cross-country Crew

 

After the Instrument phase we move on to Advanced Contact (where we get to do loads more aerobatics) and Low Level. The Advanced Contact phase includes area solos, where we get to go out and practice our aerobatic maneuvers by ourselves with no IP in the back seat. That was really cool and super exciting; I still can't believe I get to do this and get paid for it.

Low Level is designed for us to practice point to point navigation by flying prescribed routes at 500 feet above the ground and 210 knots. It was really cool flying that low and that fast and it was fun to get to dodge towers and birds and aim for reaching our "target" as close as we could to the planned target time.


Today was my first Formation ride. In T-6 we do 2-ship formations and fly, at the closest, a mere 10 feet from the other aircraft! It was pretty terrifying but absolutely amazing!! I'm told that formation gets easier really quickly, which I hope is true because staying in the proper "fingertip" position for even a few seconds was pretty difficult, but I guess thats what practice is for! Within only 7 or so more rides I'll be doing my formation solo, taking the jet out in formation by myself!! Craziness.....

I'll probably not update again until after T-6 is over (which is going to be super soon which blows my mind) but if you have any questions about what I'm up to, don't hesitate to ask!