By Fleet Lentz 

The Mercedes Enterprise 

It’s not like we never got caught and hammered, 

I was det dad, shorthand for Officer In Charge, by seniortity ,for a foray back to Miramar, Ca. where we were to be the aggressors for the Topgun staff, if I remember rightly. We had about one day to go and we were flying well, were pushing and shooting Topgun staff all over the sky and feeling good about it. 

One guy whom we will call Television, flew a really good hop. I can say here, that Gambler was possibly the best pilot I ever flew with outside of combat. He decided he hasd earned the right to make a fancy break coming back into Miramar, and he did. Was it legal? Not sure, to this day. 

Next thing I know a jeep pulls up and out steps a man senior to to me, the Executive Officer of NAS Miramar, asks where I am and says he needs to see me-now. In the Commanding Officers office.I asked him if I had time to change clothes, out of my stinking flight suit. He said I didn’t need to, just follow him.Which I did. 

In the office I met Captain Red Best, the CO of Naaaval Air Station Miramar and he was not a happy camper.He told me I had about five hours to get my detachment loaded up and out of his airstation. 

Then he told me why. He had had a delegation from the nation of India as guests up on the quarter deck above his office as guests when Television did his fancy brewak and had to explain to the guests that that kind of re entry to the runway was not authorized and was , his word, illegal. He told his guests he had handled it and was kicking us off his air station. 

The man Red Best (or Worst, as we later named Red Worst) was angry and embarrassed. We were in trouble and loaded up as fast as we could to head back to Dallas. 

That was where the trouble would really hit the fan. We had a new CO back there, a regular Msrine Colonel who none of us knew, save one guy who had said we was a “lifer”. That is a derogatory term for those on active duty who want little more than to make their next rank. 

He was not going to like this I thought, but knew I had to go to his office and face the music. 

I told him what had gone down, expecting the worst. To my genuine ssssurprise and relef he told me I Had done the right thing in going to see Best(Worst) and getting “outta Dodge” 

He had not heard a word from San Diego and I know now, and he never did. 

I flew the hop back to Dallas with Television who told me to “watch this” . He performed a tuck under break, illegal in some places, but not Navy Dallas. He also told me that that was his last hop in the Marine Corps as an F4 pilot . It was and I counted that hop as good fortune from one of the best, if not THE best F4 pilots that ever flew the Phantom. 

We still keep up. 

End. For now. 

Lentz