October 2013; Naval Air Station Fallon, Fallon, NV
Picture Burning Man’s flat, inhospitable, barren desert landscape. An hour away is Fallon, Nevada, with its downtown of strip malls, dog-eared casinos, empty storefronts, liquor stores, and diners. And just outside of town you will find Naval Air Station Fallon, home to the Naval Air Warfare Development Center, or NAWDC, where the most elite aviators and instructors develop the tactics that keep the United States ahead of our most advanced adversaries and where the art and science of dogfighting is perfected. NAWDC is also home to the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor Program, or SFTI, popularly known as Topgun. What the instructors and students at Topgun can do with aircraft is simply jaw-dropping. And it’s no wonder Topgun’s home is Fallon, because there is absolutely nothing to do out there but fly.
Deployment is when military units depart their home base and establish themselves overseas to engage in combat operations or international exercises and patrols. Naval aviation squadrons are constantly either on deployment, winding down from deployment, or preparing to go on deployment, a phase of training called workups. During workups, the Blacklions trained in different locations, constantly on the road, bouncing from Key West to home, to Fallon, to home, to Fallon, to home, to the boat, to home, to Fallon, to home, to the boat, to home, and, finally, deployment.
Not only were the ranges out west best for sharpening our skills and testing our strike tactics—dropping bombs, close air support, air to air combat—they provided the perfect training ground for Afghanistan—tall mountains, high elevation, lots of sand. Even the harsh weather was the same. At Fallon, our flying elevated to a whole new level. We powered through long days of massive war games, followed by four-hour debriefs in front of our entire squadron plus the six other squadrons in the air wing, and the highly trained SFTI instructors. The stressful and competitive work, combined with long hours, made blowing off steam on weekend trips or in the O’Club essential.
One day at our workup exercise called Air Wing Fallon, I’d flown a long and complex, multiplane air battle and endured a four-hour debrief. Exhausted, hungry, and ready for a cold beer, I realized most of the squadron had already left for dinner. I showered, changed into a pair of jeans, a comfy Lululemon shirt, and a down vest. With the sun setting and the brisk fall air setting in, I hurried across the officers’ quarters courtyard and ducked into the O’Club.
The Fallon O’Club, probably my favorite bar in the world, is filled with memorabilia—gifts from each Topgun class, ranging from propellers to a jukebox, and the aviation history is so rich, you can almost hear Goose and Maverick singing “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling.”
Since it was still early in the night, a few seats sat open at the bar, so I took an empty stool next to a guy by himself. Like me, he wore jeans and a warm sweater, and seemed to be minding his own business. Just the kind of companion I was looking for after a long day.
“Get you something to drink?” the bartender asked. “On tap we got Miller Lite, Budweiser, PBR…” she rattled off the beers.
“Don’t have Stella, do you?”
“Actually I do. You and that fella are the only people who’ve asked for my Stella all week.” She poured my beer, tilting it just right so as to avoid a foamy head.
“Good choice,” said my neighbor in a slightly highborn British accent. “Can’t stand that watery American shit.” He had the kind of voice you wanted to bottle up and drink, but I wasn’t gonna let a Brit trash America, even if he was right about our flavorless beer.
“English beer is shit, too. Apparently you agree, since you’re drinking a Belgian.”
He perked up, arching an eyebrow. “Now, now, don’t jump to any conclusions.” He smiled. “You think I’m English, don’t you?”
“I know you are,” I said, sipping my perfectly poured Stella Artois.
“Only half English. My mother is German.”
Calling his bluff, without pause I spoke to him in German, “Wirklich? Wenn sie echt Deutsch ist, wo kommt sie denn her?” Really? If your mother is truly German, tell me, where is she from?
“Aus Bayern, naturlich,” he replied in perfect German. She’s from Bavaria, of course.
At that moment, if he had stood up and offered me a hand, I would have walked with him down to the flight line, stolen a plane, and flown our F/A-18 to a twenty-four-hour wedding chapel in Reno. In a few short sentences he had me, and he knew it, too.
We sat and talked into the night. And the best part was we didn’t talk about flying. No shoptalk of tactics or training, we didn’t even mention the military or airplanes. Instead, he described his favorite villages in Germany. We talked about mountains in Austria, where to stay in Dubai, even literature. He actually read books, and fiction, too! Real novels without airplanes in them. For an hour and a half, the rest of Fallon disappeared, and it was just the two of us, chatting, laughing.
After dinner, he waved for the check, and looked at me slightly shaking his head. “Who are you? Who’s this girl sitting alone in the O’Club speaking German and having dinner with a guy she’s just met?”
And I threw it right back at him. “Who are you?”
“You don’t know me?” he said, smiling, arrogant. “Surely you know who I am.”
“You may think you’re special, but news flash—not everyone knows or cares to know who you are,” I said coyly. “If you’re so important, though, please enlighten me.”
As it turns out, the unassuming guy with the good beer taste—let’s call him Burberry—was the first British pilot to ever attend Topgun, which would be the equivalent of the first British person to join the NFL and go on to win the Super Bowl in his first season.
Just then, the rest of the squadron, having finished dinner, showed up half drunk and looking to get all the way there. The room morphed from quiet to raucous, and Burberry excused himself to go study. “Hope I see you around,” he said.
I drifted over to my squadron, chatting with the guys who already knew Burberry by reputation and were in awe. Had it been any other guy with me at the bar, I would have been pelted with questions—“What were you doing with that guy? What was he doing in our O’Club?” But since my companion was a famous British pilot, one of the eighteen current Topgun students, the chatter turned to the elite flight program and how to get in.
The guys might have missed it, but Taylor sauntered over, grinning knowingly. “Oh my God!” She pulled me aside, smelling of vodka and citrus. “You and that Brit. I could feel the sexual tension from across the room. You’ve got a thing going, don’t you?”
“Not yet.”
Burberry and I would have an intense whirlwind relationship. The kind that happens when both parties aren’t concerned about the future, but let go and discover something previously unmatched in other partners.
As with most military relationships, timing was perfectly terrible for anything long term. Burberry would be leaving Topgun for Virginia while I would be on my nine-month deployment to the Middle East. We both knew what we had would burn brightly, but only for a short, intense time. But for once in my life, I lived fully in the moment. All fun and no stakes, so long as we kept the relationship away from the squadron. Even though Burberry was totally within bounds for dating—he was not in my unit or chain of command—it still wasn’t acceptable for a woman to have any kind of romantic escapade, unless it ended in a serious relationship or marriage. While guys were lauded and praised for relationships and trysts, women in the fighter community were shamed. Called slutty or mocked for exploits. So in keeping with the survival protocol I’d developed for myself, I kept my cards close to my chest, and kept the relationship a secret known only by my closest friends … until now.