By F.S. Lentz

My pilot Slammer and I had been selected to attend Topgun, whose real name is Navy Fighter Weapons School. It was an honor. The best flying in the world, except for combat. 

In those days it was held at NAS Miramar, since then it has been moved to NAS Fallon, Nevada. 

We were told to bring a backup crew in case something went wrong. Our backup crew were Pig, a very good pilot and Mule, his RIO, backseater. Mule had been a former enlisted man, a Sargent of Marines and was a very good RIO. I, in fact had had a hand in getting him commissioned as a Marine officer ten years before.. 

We had been pre-told that for the first two weeks of the school , the Topgun staff spent showing us that even if we were good, they were better, so for about the first two weeks, we went to the O Club bar to have some drinks while de-briefing the day’s flights. 

That afternoon, we were having a beer when Mule saw someone at the entrance door trying to come in. A civilian in a tee shirt , jeans , with long hair. Mule, having been enlisted previously, knew his rights as an officer, and was watchful of them now, jumped up hustled to the door. Once he got there, he opened it and stood in front of the civilian and blocked his entrance. 

He told him loosely, “pal,you are not a commissioned officer. You are not allowed in. And you need a haircut”. 

Pig, who was a Naval Academy graduate, was watching ,this and out of the corner of his eye,,saw a group of Naval officers, headed by an Admiral headed for the O club. 

He got up and went to Mule. He said “Mule, if you’ll leave this guy alone, I’ll buy you a beer.” The civilian looked up at Mule who was a big man (former all state high school player) and said “Mule , if you leave me alone, I’ll buy you a case of beer” The civilian stuck his and out and said my name is Tom Cruse.He and the Navy brass were out reconning Miramar for Cruse’s upcoming movie Topgun. 

I do not know to this day if Cruse bought Mule the case of beer or not. 

The first movie about Topgun got a meh …reaction from most Marine F-4 pilots. The second movie was better. 

Be that as it may, Mule earned his way into my memory and this book. 

There will be at least one more Mule story in this book, maybe more if I can remember them. 

But this was the sort of attitude that many Cowboys had about civilians in general but Hollywood regained some ground after the second Topgun movie. We also had a sort of meetup with some of the Starwars crew as they were filming the sand barge scenes out near Yuma , Arizona, but that comes later on. 

End for now. 

QLVB, eh? 

Lentz