Reportedly written by a female Tomcat RIO on USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT.This young lady certainly seems to like her job. The author was a Naval Academy grad (USNA '92)."Well, Gerald, let me tell you about my day yesterday. I started out pretty bummed that back home in Va Beach, the Tomcat community was having it's annual Fighter Fling--huge affair at the Marriot in Norfolk. Wearing mess dress, usually degrades to a drink-ex by 3am. We were all missing it. But I didn't stay bummed for long. I went out ona 6.5 hour mission over lovely Afghanistan, met up with a ground FAC and he directed us towards some nice juicy targets. Sum total between 4 Toms and 2 Hornets: 13 LGBs and 8 MK-82's. My pilot and I (another chick by the way--chicks rule) were personally responsible for one tank with a GBU-12 and a little airburst love on some troops in the open with a couple of MK-82s. <sniff It was BEAUTIFUL! I get a tear in my eye just thinking about it. After that we came back to our first beer day (We've been underway for 61 consecutive days without a port call). I woke up still drunk. Now that's the way cruise should be. There certainly wouldn't be a retention problem if they let us do this everyday. In general, the guys are doing some great work. I've passed on the video to those that have given me SIPERNET addresses. Some in particular: A LANTIRN (F-14 FLIR) video of a B-52 dropping a string of about 20-30 MK-82's. Looked like little rabbit turds dropping out of the airplane. After the drop, the LANTIRN slews down and you can see them explode in a line along a road. Pretty cool. Another favorite of the airwing's is a TCS (F-14 TV system) video of a GBU falling off the other Tomcat. The TCS follows the bomb all the way down until it explodes on a truck. Another good video was a Marinehornet that dropped a GBU on what he thought was a building that turned out to be a POL facility or some kind of storage facility... that one ended up on CNN the other day when ADM Stufflebeam was briefing the press. The secondaries were freakin' phenomenal and completely unexpected. The shock wave was eye-watering. Lastly, we sent some guys out the other day that found a convoy moving out like they had somewhere important to be. They must have heard the jets because all of a sudden the trucks come to a screeching halt and you can see little white dots making for the hills right before the first bombs roll in and take out about 3-4 of the vehicles. If there was ever a time for Rockeye, that was it. That one made it on CNN for the Admiral's daily briefingas well. I think it was some Toms from the Vinson that got the opportunity to do some actual straffing of troops in the open when a ground FAC was being over-run. I wish I had the video of that. Nothing like peppering the enemy with a little 20mm HEI (High Explosive Incendiary--like tiny little grenades that come out of the gun and explode like popcorn when they hit--way cool). They drove back the enemy advance and the FAC and his team made it through for another day. Go Navy Air. Other than that, it's cruise. Too bad I can't have days like yesterday all the time. As a parting shot, Jeff Winters '89 says"Hi freaks" and Rich, I hung out with your boys last night while they played poker. G-Money says hey. Take care all and in another 2 months or so, I should have more fun and games to pass on. Regards, Kristin
