Fair Winds and Following Seas Shipmate

[powerlifter54]

Stopped counting friends lost at 10 years ago.

http://www.recordcourier.com/article/20 ... ofile=1049

http://www.neptunuslex.com/

Two words come to mind.

"Godpseed"

and

"FUCK!"

[Gin Master]

Sorry, Jack. RIP to what sounds like, from his blog, a good and decent dude.

[nafod]

Oh Jesus..I've traded everything from barbs to hearty agreements with Lex over both open forum and emails. I always wondered whether this day could come when he jumped back in the saddle. An F-21 Kfir is a lot of jet...

Without any irony at all, he died doing what he loved doing. But that is very small consolation.

[nafod]

This, from a very recent blog post of his after he had to deal with a landing emergency, says everything.

It’s funny how quickly you can go from “comfort zone” to “wrestling snakes” in this business.

But even snake wrestling beats life in the cube, for me at least. In measured doses.

[tough old man]

Sorry for your loss Jack & Nafod. Sounds like he had a fun life.

[powerlifter54]

We traded emails over the holidays last year about post service life and our shared dread of life in the cube.

I did the "grown up" thing and got a "real" job after retirement, but I hated it. I didn't like the work, missed the flight suit environment, missed the feeling of tenuous mastery that comes with moving fast metal into the merge.

You only get one spin of the wheel. Good luck finding that thing that makes your spin worthwhile.

Took his advice and stayed in the game. Despite the outcome, i do not think he would have changed his choice.

[WildGorillaMan]

My condolences, Jack.

[nafod]

One of those "it's a small world" moments started back in 1990 or so, I was down in Key West for Car Quals, and was chilling out waiting for my go by watching jets come into the break. A flight of three came back in, two F-18s and an F-5 I believe. The flight lead screwed up terribly and broke into his wingman, slicing through the cockpit with his horizontal stab. I saw the smoke plume and watched the crash trucks motor out.

We'd lost at least one pilot on the last three monthly dets to Key West, but were starting to think we'd get out of this one with 100% left. Not our squadron, but still sucked.

Years later on Lex's blog he talked about how he was the wingman on the other side, and his experience of the mishap. Brought back some strong memories.

[The Venerable Bogatir X]

An F-21 Kfir is a lot of jet...

Back in the olden days of the Iron Curtain, a squadron of F-21's existed in Yuma with a very interesting mission....you both probably know what I'm talking about.

My condolences.

[The Venerable Bogatir X]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMFT-401

Back in the day, everything inside their hangar was CCCP.

[Holland Oates]

RIP

[Bobby]

RIP and my condolences.Bad start to the week.

[The Crawdaddy]

Condolences Jack.

[bigpeach]

Sorry to hear, PL54. I hope they don't sully his name with the typical NTSB rubber-stamp investigation. Sounds like he lived the aviation career most pilots only dream of.

[Sassenach]

Holy shit. I'm so sorry, Jack.

[Testiclaw]

/this is shaping up to be a shitty week.
//RIP

[Fat Cat]

Sorry about your friend, that's horrible.

[rjudo]

RIP

[The Ginger Beard Man]

My condolences, guys. RIP.

[Freki]

Condolences, RIP.

[powerlifter54]

This flavor of writing captures the man and his charecter and skill.

The Heroes We Don't Know by Carroll LeFon | August 08, 2011
I don't believe I ever met any of the fallen heroes from DevGru. I don't know their names, have not seen their faces. They shun recognition from anyone not of their tribe, knowing that no one not of them can appreciate what they have gone through, what they have accomplished, what they have been forced to do. But I have met them, or men like them.

I also know fighter pilots, know them well. They give pride of place to few, their arrogance is legendary, even if overblown by those who envy their accomplishments. I've known fighter pilots who can make an airplane sing, who can turn the turbulent world of air combat into an operatic ballet, with themselves as the conductor. Knowing every beat and stanza, placidly certain of the denouement. But I never knew a fighter pilot who in his most private self would not tip his head to those few, those noble few, who are qualified to bring death to our nation's foes by sea, air and land.

I never knew an admiral I respected more as a man than a second class petty officer SEAL.

I believed that if I had played the game the way it was meant to be played, and caught a few lucky breaks, I might have made flag rank. I know that I do not have now, and never did have, what it takes to be a Navy SEAL.

The selection process is rigorous, the training syllabus withering. You may think you have what it makes to be a member of the teams. But if the instructional staff has doubts about your intelligence, your dedication, your ability to work as a member of a team, your physical stamina and endurance, you are done. There is no court of secondary appeal. And when they have decided that you do not have what it takes to make the grade, to fight alongside their beloved brothers in arms, you will leave thinking it was your decision. You will ring the bell and be grateful.

For those few who make the cut, those who get to wear the Budweiser, the real challenges are yet to come. The challenge now is not to make the cut, it is not to grasp the intricacies of advanced training. The challenge is to go to places so utterly foreign, and fight foes so thoroughly implacable that to take the mission is to willingly part with all that you have, and all that you love, and place everything in the balance in a desperate gamble.

You will be expensively and thoroughly trained, of course. You will have practiced until your motions seem involuntary. You will have in your company men who know, trust and love you in their own rough way. You will have certain knowledge of the justice of your cause, and the depravity of your enemy. But you will also know that fate plays its own games as you feel the beat of your own heart in your breast, knowing -- as young men should never have to know -- that when you're on a mission, the next beat is not promised. Knowing that the fog of war is ineluctable, no matter your training, experience and skill.

Knowing that things can and will go wrong.

And you go anyway. Night after night, week after week, taunting fate.

You go knowing that it is not merely your own life that trembles in the balance, but the lives of those you love, and who depend upon you. You go knowing that there is something more important even than those things: It is the idea we as a nation represent, whose best exemplification is those you fight alongside. You do not dwell on it, nor do you wear it on your sleeve. But it is there nonetheless.

I know this because I have met them.

They are as humble in their public presentation as fighter pilots are ostentatiously obnoxious. A fighter pilot may feel that he has something to prove, a SEAL knows that he does not. At least not before mere mortals. The only beings that a SEAL feels obligated to prove himself to are his God and his teammates. And in the places that they insert themselves, God is rarely in the room.

Privation instead, and hardship. Monastic devotion to fitness, warrior prowess and to each other. Long days of preparation and rehearsal. Slow, creeping hours of approach to contact and moments of fierce combat. Expecting no quarter, and giving little. Living in each moment while knowing that each could be the last. Buttressed by the man to your left or right. Face forward to the foe.

Fight and win, or fight and die. No ejection seats.

We had a tradition at TOPGUN of instructor staff leaving something for those they leave behind. One officer left a plaque which read, "For those who know, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, no explanation is possible."

I mourn the passing of a great naval aviator, a professional analyst of all things naval, and a soulful and compelling writer of poetry and prose – Ray Mabus, SecNav.

[johno]

RIP

[Crust Bucket]

Sorry to hear this Jack, my condolences.
RIP

[Mickey O'neil]

My condolences. RIP

[clutch]

RIP, and my sympathies.