I will never forget the day I flew with Lieutenant Colonel Dan “Noonan” Rooney, although I have every excuse, as I had been knocked unconscious that very morning. I was riding my bike uphill and out of the saddle (and, ironically, “into the damn wind”), when two idiots came hurtling downhill around a corner and plowed head on into me. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I came out of the ether, my very first thought was “Noonan must not know of this.” You see, not everyone gets to fly in the back seat of an F-16 Viper, and I knew if he or the flight surgeon ever got wind of what was definitely a concussion (or the fact that for several hours I didn’t know whether I was blown up or stuffed) my chance would be gone.
It was the 2007 PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, and I was there working the event for CBS. Growing up in Northern Ireland, surrounded by soldiers, I had an affinity for the military, and ever since 9/11, something had ached inside of me. I had lived in America since 1993, had fallen in love with the place, and I couldn’t bear the thought of terrorism reaching the shores of yet another place I thought of as home. When Dan described his vision for Folds of Honor and asked if I would help in promoting the launch of the foundation, I jumped at the chance, to say the least. Our troops had our backs downrange, and this was a chance to do something for their families if they didn’t make it home.
It was well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit that afternoon, and after three hours of ingress and egress education (none of which got past the concussion), I put on my harness, which connects me to the ejection seat, and tightened the straps. How the hell is he walking upright? I thought, as I walked like a crippled lobster behind Dan, across the sweltering apron, toward that beautiful machine. He turned around, giggling, and said, “You don’t tighten up until you get in the seat, you moron.” Right, I knew that. “You know all that ingress and egress stuff you just sat through?” he said.
“Uh-huh.” I nodded.
“Forget it, just don’t touch anything yellow.”
As it turned out, the ejection handle under my seat was yellow. Enough said. I loosened my straps and did my best Tom Cruise swagger to the bottom of the ladder, climbed up, and shoehorned myself into the back seat. Not a lot of room.
At the time, my daily driver was a Porsche 911 Turbo, so I didn’t think I’d be freaked out by the airplane’s acceleration down the runway. Math was never my strong suit, so I don’t know how many times a 911 Turbo goes into 29,000 pounds of thrust. Suffice to say that we hadn’t gone a nine iron’s length down the runway before I wanted my mommy. Everyone had told me that I should eat a banana before I did this, as bananas taste the same coming up as they do going down, but I dislike being told what to do, so I’d had a big sweaty cheeseburger and a chocolate malt for lunch. That was beginning to feel like a bad decision.
I have no idea what speed we were doing when Dan pointed that damn thing vertical, but I felt the change of direction in my dental work, and that was just the beginning. Once we were at 20,000 feet, Dan pulled the F-16 on its back and rolled over. I felt like some idiot had touched something yellow, and I was being catapulted out of the canopy. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can prepare a layperson for the violence of such an experience, and it was right then that I started to wonder if the crazy idiot in front of me was a human being. No normal person could do this for a living, I thought, as my testicles snapped back into place. If I’d known that that was going to happen, I would have bought them a little G-suit of their own.
What an hour of my life that was. We pulled nine Gs twice, I didn’t pass out, and the cheeseburger didn’t come out of either end of me! We rocketed over the clubhouse at Southern Hills at what seemed like about 13 feet high, and when Dan said it was time to land, I squealed like a little boy, “Nooooooooo!” It was too much fun! But CBS had documented the whole thing, and Folds of Honor was up and running. I was right about one thing: Lt Colonel Dan Rooney is no ordinary person.
A few weeks later, I called Dan and asked how I could get my then-Irish ass to Iraq. He pulled a few levers (none of them yellow), and the following year, I was there with the USO, a trip that changed my life forever. I came back wanting—no, needing—to be an American. And I did: I became a U.S. citizen and even started my own foundation, Troops First.
It takes a special person to give an alcoholic drug addict in the throes of mental illness the opportunity to have such an experience, but if you read this book you’ll get it, just like I did, and you will find yourself equipped with the tools to make your life and the lives of those around you better. Dan Rooney is a special friend to me and was an inspiration at a time in my life when I thought I had no purpose.
Noonan’s fighter-pilot mind can process information at extraordinary speeds. This gives him the unique ability to see details and dimensions that most people never notice. Fly Into the Wind is the awesome culmination of Lt Colonel Dan’s study of life. His single-seat-fighter-pilot mentality drives his ethos that one person can trigger enormous change and impact. His personal struggles taught him that in order to ascend, we need to feel pressure on the underside of our wings, and to have the strength to hold those wings steady in the storm. Dan has found that strength in his faith, and in common sense too. Every player on the PGA Tour knows that it’s easier to find that difficult flag, the one just over the bunker, if you have the wind in your face. Downwind gets you nowhere near, and nothing in life is valuable without the challenge that comes before it.
—David Feherty