hands to show where her jet was at a certain point during her
We talked about how lucky we were to have transitioned to
and challenging.
Lincoln was the following October
carrier qualify its airwing's aviators. I had walked on board the
squadron's ready room and monitor my squadron's airplanes
coming aboard the aircraft carrier on the special television in
our squadron ready room.
approaches. When my aviator girlfriends approached the
the aircraft lose altitude and start rolling to the left. The
then yelled for the crew to eject. Both aircrew ejected. The
announcement over the announcement system blared “plane
monitor the situation on the Shipboard TV awaiting word on
for the carrier’s loudspeaker to announce that both aviators
were safe. There are several channels on the ship's TV that
channel will list all aircraft airborne with the pilots' names. I
immediately switched to that channel to see who was in the
downed aircraft and saw that it was Kara. Within minutes after
of the aircrew from the water. I hoped it was Kara but after
announced that there was a search going on for the pilot.
88 VETERANS AFFAIRS 90 YEARS: Military & Wellness