What are those shiny things on your chest? Oh right, WINGS!

So I'm done with pilot training. Yeah that happened. So the past few months were crazy and exciting and now I'm off to the big bad Air Force to fly. 

Here are the official shots we took: O-Flight and personal photos

 

Our assignment night was themed Wrestle-mania and so we all dressed up as WWE wrestlers. I was "Cherry." Yeah, I don't know who she is or anything about her but she wears a poodle skirt which was easy enough to put together so I went with that. I was selected to fly an MC-12 which is a reconnaissance, intelligence, and surveillance aircraft that does real time intelligence gathering, forward air control, control of aircraft and aerial battle stacks, and other secret squirrel stuff that I don't really know about. The flying itself may be kind of boring at times but the mission will be really cool and I will get to do a lot of flying in a short time (the training is short and I'll actually be all spun up and able to deploy by the end of the year) so it will be nice to finally do something real in the Air Force after graduating 4 years ago. 

Some group photos from Assignment Night. With my classmates and with the wives and girlfriends of O-Flight:

 

 

Graduation was really fun. Mom, Abba, and Youval came to Sheppard as well as Steve and Paula (my sponsor parents from the Academy) and Kim Hale (one of my best friends and teammates from the Academy). On the day of graduation we showed our guests the base and got to take them around to the flightline, tower, and simulators. Abba was a pro at flying the sim but Youval crashed into the ground on the runway and Mom crashed, inverted, about 200 feet short.... Good thing you just hit a button and it resets!

At the ceremony we showed our class video (check it out here) and then the Wing Commander and guest speaker spoke. I gave the guest speaker his awards and then the Distinguished Graduates and award winners were announced. I was given the MOAA Officership Excellence award which I was not expecting! Then the moment we were all waiting for: our wings!! Abba was able to pin my wings on and it was really cool to have my inspiration for wanting to be in the Air Force and fly there to put my wings on my chest.

 

Pilot training was a crazy 55 weeks full of ups and downs and laughs and tears. I'm so glad I did it and I'm excited for whats coming next for me in the Air Force.