 Happy New Year and welcome to Figments, the power of imagination. I should say welcome back to Figments, the power of imagination because I've been absent for five months due to four o'clock management, calendar management, whatever kind of management, and all the demands of life. But I'm back due to, you won't believe this, popular request. I went to Biter Squadron Union and so many of the other participants said, hey, Fig, we miss Figments, but I felt compelled to do it. So here I am. And that was, I have to put a plug in or I'll get in trouble with that crowd. That was for the 426th Fighter Squadron, claw, claw, claw. We have rules and we get spanked if we don't follow the rules. So I'm here to entertain and inspire. As you know, I've been thinking a lot about my life as a fighter pilot since that reunion. So this season, which I'm calling season five arbitrarily, is going to be mostly about aviation, including today. That's part of why I have my Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum t-shirt on. I hope if you're on a Wahoo or visit a Wahoo, you'll visit the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum. And if not, please participate in our webinars because they've got a great host. Yes, it is me. Of course it is. So I was incredibly lucky to be a fighter pilot. And I'm going to talk about a unique aspect of being a fighter pilot today, that something called dooper books. And if you weren't one or weren't around the original social media, you're a dooper book. What the heck is a dooper book? But it's part of the fabric of fighter aviation, or it certainly was during my time in the cockpit and in the squadron heritage. OK, it was a bar, OK? It was a bar. I was lucky enough to fly four great aircraft, mostly in the Air Force, the F-4, the OV-10, the F-15 and the F-16 and hang around with fighter pilots. And just as I am unapologetic about living in Hawaii, I don't apologize for that. It was awesome. Top Gun Maverick, a great movie previously reviewed on figments from imagination, doesn't do that life justice. We got to hang around with amazing people and do amazing things and live on the edge a bit, and it was awesome. So I'm going to talk about part of that. That is the reason that that love, remembrance of fond remembrance of being a fighter pilot is why I participate in an online forum for old fighter pilots where that your reverence, hilarity and storytelling continue. And we tend to currently retire Bruce Spike Beneshek. Spike, how are you doing, brother? Doing great, it's great to be here. Yeah, I feel like old friends, but we only met on an unnamed social media platform or two where guys like us hang out and relive the day. It's not really reliving. We continue. I agree. And there I learned by observing your postings, your entries, your humor, your insight, that you're a bit of an anthropologist of the fighter aviation world. Is that a fair characterization? I want to, you know, do the kind of probing interviewer thing. But is that a fair characterization to say that you're a fighter pilot anthropologist? I would say pretty fair if you use anthropology to mean historian, a guy that's fascinated by airplanes, the history of airplanes, the history of warfare and everything that goes with it. Yeah, when I googled it, because I had no idea what anthropology meant, it was just a word that came to mind of getting ready for the show. It also mentions biology. We'll stay out of that part of the fighter pilot for now. But yeah, you understand our world and you ought to understand it. You began life, real life as we see it as an OV-10 four-door controller. I flew the Bronco tube in Korea and then you flew the F-4G wild weasel in Desert Storm and several other planes, including 4,100 hours in the T-38. We'll talk about that in a second. But wild weasel, we're going to lay the groundwork for getting to do for books. The wild weasel mission is the suppression of enemy air defenses. That's where you go up with a pilot or a crew and you try to get them to try to shoot you so you can shoot them. And thus the mission motto is YGDSM. And it has been since the very early days of wild weaseling in Vietnam. So what was it like being in the F-4G and in Desert Storm? Tell me a little bit about your experiences there in combat. It first off, being in combat was a surprise to me because growing up in the aftermath of Vietnam, I thought the country was so averse to warfare that it would be if it was a war, it'd be the big one. And I didn't see that happening. I would say that we had an upgrade to the weasel that was completed right before the war that increased the radar detection and locating capability tenfold. And that's why that's like an order of magnitude, literally. It was fantastic. It couldn't have happened at a better time and the system worked beautifully. The missiles were, they performed as advertised and it was a completely different war than what the weasels went through in Vietnam. I'd like to share this story. We had to divert one night to Cutter because Shakey's and Bahrain was fogged in. And the F-16s were operating out of Cutter. And they lost two jets that day, I believe. And their ops have said, as far as we're concerned, you guys are mission essential equipment. If you're not in the target area, we're going to jettison our bombs and go home. I said, my flight commander said, we were weasels before weasels were cool. That is pretty cool when they when they won't go to war without you. And my combat experience came later. And I actually was a weasel wing commander at Shaw, but not in combat then through combat in the Block 40-16. And even if you are merely suppressing and not killing the enemy defenses, the rest of us don't want to be there without you. So there you go. Let me ask you a question. I know the answer to me, my answer to this. Were you scared on your first real combat mission? Yes. Not from Sam's. I was afraid of Meg's. Oh, really? Yeah. Of getting shot down by the Iraqi force, which didn't have a bad combat record prior to. Well, because we didn't know what their capability was. And so I felt I felt confident in my ability to to do the Sam mission. But I think we were in the first daylight mission since everything started around midnight. And I thought, all right, we've probably stirred up a hornet's nest. Now they're going to be out for blood. And so I thought somebody would sneak up without a radar behind us and shoot an atoll. And so, yeah, so the first missile I actually saw in flight was a wingman shooting a harm that went straight. Street can pass my airplane. And I reacted kind of portally to it. They I know that feeling. I had a harm go over my head egressing for my first real combat real work where I dropped bombs on enemy targets and the enemy, just to be honest. And ERG Tornado German put a arm over my head going the other way. And it was impressive at night. I I prefer night flying in combat. You can see all the bullets. Exactly. You know, shooting edge. I always on the daytime combat missions, I always felt like there was too much that I didn't know. Exactly. OK, you did get forty one hundred hours in the T thirty eight as an instructor pilot near training commander command after your after your time in the weasel. How does anybody get four thousand one hundred hours training new pilots? By briefing them and flying them just doing it day after day. And I was the guy that when they needed somebody to fill a hole in the schedule, I'll do it. Yeah, if you want to fly, the key is to be at the ops desk, right? You know, when when something falls out, somebody can't fly there. You know, they have the sniffles or to doggie their line of card or whatever be there, ready to fill the hole and raise your hand. Always the key to getting a lot of flying time. Go ahead. I like to say when you like what you do, you do what you like. That makes far too much sense. I'm probably not attractive in the outer world, but it is to me. So flying combat, in addition to that experience, that fear of getting shot down or screwing up, my big fear was that I wouldn't be able to do it because my first real combat mission was as a one star wing commander. I really had a crushing fear that twenty five years of big talking and big walking would be washed away if I if I couldn't do it. But the relationships when you do it and you survive and you do well enough that your combat mates still talk to you are something that simply there's no you can't. We can't even explain combat relationships to those who haven't been there, right? I get a picture of you here with with a couple of crew mates. Yeah, probably your backseater and another crew. Tell me about that. And tell me that picture is actually taking those. We took two jets to the boneyard after the war, but that particular. You're kidding. No, that's a Davis Monthan. Hey, wait, it's raining. It's in Arizona and it's wet. No, it actually was snowing in the mountains of Tucson that day. But in that particular jet, if you see all the the harm silhouettes on the intake, how many missiles were shot in combat? How many kills? Not missiles shot. Oh, really? Radar kills. And that jet, I believe, had either nine or eleven radar kills. That's a lot, because I used to call from my experience in Allied Force the harm that the missile guaranteed to hit the country you're aiming at plus or minus one. But that's another story, another jet. So that's that's incredible. How about the guys you're with there? The guys you flew combat with? The two backseaters so that I'm the second from the left. The bald guy, I can tell by the hairstyle, which apparently really persists. So the two guys, the two outboard guys are the backseaters and they were new. They they came to the squadron after the war. But John Lamb, the bald guy next to me, he flew over 500 combat sorties in Southeast Asia. Holy moly. He didn't get to go to the desert storm, even though he wanted to. That's a long story as well. Well, but Lambo is one hell of a guy. Most he started off in AC 47 spooky gunships. Then I think 400 sorties in the A 37 in Southeast Asia. A bunch of riots in T 28s with various local countries. I mean, he's a bad ass. He really is. Yeah, why do people want to fly combat? That's I mean, something, a question I get from folks, you know, well, that's terrible. There's nothing I wanted to do more than have the opportunity to fly combat until I did and then I still wanted to do it. So what's your answer? Why do people want to fly combat? I wish I could quote who the poet was, but he said that war was the ultimate adventure as long as you didn't die. Because it's the opportunity for well, risk, OK, people always like activities that feel risky. That's why people like roller coasters and skydiving and bungee jumping. Good points. There's there's a chance for heroism and making a name for yourself. As many guys found out in World War Two, there's wartime romances. Hell, even for me. I met my wife after the war in the Gulf. Good for you. And I know that the rest of that story will save that story for maybe another episode, because it's a beautiful story. And so in that, you know, you have your relationship if you're in a two-seater like the F4G or with your flight due or for and then with the squadron. And the cohesion of that unit really matters. Here's your F4G squadron, I think, from Desert Storm. The cohesion really matters. And I have 13 flying squadrons working for me during Allied Force. And it wasn't the same in every squadron. So you agree, cohesion matters in the squadron. Absolutely. Kind of a difficult. It's not a chemistry. You can simply mix up in a piqui dish. No, it's not. So my my thesis, then, is that our topic and, yes, folks, we are getting to the subject. We've I don't know if we buried the lead or some other journalistic thing and laying the groundwork of the world of fighter aviation and the risk taking. And with the tenant risk comes losses and sadness and grief and triumph. But it is a fabric that makes you capable in combat. Makes a unit capable. And my assertion, Dr. The only place, Dr. Benny Shek is that fighter squadron do for books were the original social media. So let's look at what do for books were. And this came from that clock, clock, clock reunion where somebody brought one of our do for books. It's simply a ledger. This one kind of fancied up by our squadron commander and artiste, Bob Keeney, Keeney, former guest figments of our imagination. And here's another one, a little less fancy. You with it. Are you on an aircraft carrier there? Spike, as an aside, I'm on the Nimitz. It was after the Gulf War, the Nimitz came in. They we hosted them. And then we got to go out to the boat for a night. And I've been out to the boat, too. As far as I can tell, the primary Navy mission is keeping the water on the outside of the boat, right? Yes, sir. But that's neither here nor there. So you saw one book, the fancy one, then the other green ledger book. And here are a couple of your combat. Books, I think those are desert storm books from the 81st Fighter Squadron, sometimes called the hog log, sometimes called the do-for-book. And sometimes the spelling is more French. I have seen du-feuille as the spelling of do-for-book. Please explain to the audience what a do-for-book is. Well, a do-for-book is a it was typically when I was first exposed to them, the typical green government ledger, plain blank wine paper. And it was a forum for guys to express. Anything. You had to be... Anything. Well, pretty much anything. The typical topics, though, centered on buffoonery and hilarity, such as aeronautical buffoonery, such as someone screwed up on a flight with comical results. And so you would make fun of them. Or it could be social. You could observe the single guy in your squadron who is trying to make a date with the unattractive woman. Or failing with the attract... Or attractive woman. I mean, there's a lot of... Exactly. Yeah, it doesn't matter. You'll find something funny in them. Sometimes it was political stuff. Sometimes it was poke and fun at senior Air Force leadership. And that were made, yes, sir. For example, the weasel was planned to be scrapped in 1990 and only the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait saved it. We didn't... I didn't know that until last... Did that get due for book attention the potential demise of the wild weasel? One guy put something in there and I didn't realize the gravitas of it at the time that he put it in there. I thought it was just him blowing off steam. Now I see that he was possibly read into the whole plan. And even though those covers were marked secret, they were not classified documents. They were... No. They were protected because... To protect the guilty, frankly. Because what was in there was a fauney, a reballed... I mean, misogynistic in the era. There was an all male environment. And it is what it is. We can't wish the clock away. But it was an important feedback mechanism and it was really honest. My submission, Dr. not really, Spike, is that it mimics or preceded was prescient regarding social media maybe because of the requirement for attribution. You in essence had to have an account via combat ready fighter pilot. There were different modes. Some of it was pure prose. Somebody would write up this whatever the topic was. But you'd cut and paste and we'll see some examples of that. There were memes. The original memes happened in due for books. Absolutely. And they were awesome. Some come back to mind from 30 years ago. They were that awesome. And as you said, they'd go to a buffoon or they'd go to personal screw ups. We pronounced it differently at the time. It's a matter of emphasis on which syllable personality traits and traits. You did address leadership and as somebody who gravitated to squadron group and wing leadership through the lack of oversight from the Air Force, I guess. I know that as a leader, I was not immune from getting lampooned if I did something stupid. Is that a good thing? Yes, sir. Does it really treat our leaders that way? It keeps everyone honest. And that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of the fighter pilot world that we knew, the fighter aviation world since you were in a crew jet is that because it's a life or death endeavor, nobody gives a rat's high n in about your feelings. And you talk about things that matter. It's not that feelings don't matter sometimes, but when it's a choice between your becoming a flaming grease spot on the ground and those of you who are not fighter pilots find that a little disturbing. It is disturbing, but it's a life or death business. And that honesty in do-for-books, I learned about people I'd fly with from things that were in those do-for-books. Agree or disagree, Spike? I agree. So if you wrote something wrong, you could just delete it, right? Spike, could you? No. Once you made an entry in the do-for-book, you had to date it, you had to sign it, and you had to own it, which meant if someone challenged you on it, you had to defend it, and you better be on your game. Well, that's really no different than what you would do in the air. And I've defended my thesis in my master's program and as a master's faculty member, well, now I'm putting my nose in the air, as a master's faculty member, I've participated in thesis defense interrogations, if you will. They are nothing compared to if you put crap in the do-for-book. It was self-policing. And it didn't matter who you were, not just in rank or position, but also in street cred. So the very best fighter weapons school graduate, top gun for the Navy folks, could misrepresent, misstate, or just be stupid and do-for-book in. It wasn't going to turn out well for them. And that's the beauty of it, right? So let's take a quick break here and talk about the fact that Figments is back every two weeks. I'm really excited about that. Actually, I'm bipolar about that because it's a lot of work, good work. That will be aired every other, let's see, today is Tuesday. So Wednesday, every other Wednesday at 2 o'clock PM on Think Tech, Hawaii. And of course, you can find us on YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify, Apple Podcast and Podcast Mode. And we all like it. So Spike, as I said, the do-for-books did have rules. And they were pretty hard and fast rules. I'm going to put up a screen here. Tell me about your view of the do-for-book rules. I mean, my interpretation or how if I felt that they were appropriate? I didn't give you any rules on your interpretation, the rules. But tell me how you feel about the rules. Were they important to people? They were all them. They were sacrosanct. You had to abide by them. Or sacrosanct in English. Whatever it was. And that's an example. I had to call you out on that because we're fighter pilots, right? Go ahead. No, you had to follow the rules. And the do-for-book was a way to take someone who was not within the perception of where we should be as a squadron and put pressure on a guy, whether socially, aeronautically, professionally. And he had a choice. He could either laugh at the humor. He could take offense at it. He could accept it. Or he could improve himself. And I think that was one of its most important features. It caused the weak to improve and become an accepted part of the group. Or, yeah, it's really complex. And in terms of the weak, the folks who needed to get better in any of the areas that you described, it did that. But it also kept us strong for being complete buttheads if they were being complete buttheads. So there are fighter pilots who are better than everybody else. I'm not mentioning anybody specifically, but there are fighter pilots who are better than everybody else. And sometimes that goes to their craniums and they get full of themselves. Well, a good place to get unful of yourself was in the do-for-book. And as I said, these are really multimedia presentations. And you were, I know this just from watching you in our OFP forum on an unnamed social media platform. I'm sure you were prolific. And I'm going to show a couple of examples of your do-for-book entries. But I have to ask you first, what would motivate you to sit down with a pen in hand or scissors and glue stick in hand and create a masterpiece? What would you like to have? I told you once, I think every normal person looks for recognition and acceptance and popularity, which then gives you a sense of accomplishment. So I'll give it, the do-for-book in my OB-10 squadron didn't have a lot of activity. And I was an invisible guy. I was a second lieutenant. So I show up at my first fighter squadron and I'm still an invisible guy because the old experienced guys, they know each other. And then, oh, he's just some new guy. What does he know? Yeah, we got to see how long he lives before we pay attention to it. The do-for-book was a place to make your initial impression for guys that didn't know who you were or never flown with you. So I can still remember one of the first entries I made in that do-for-book. I won't even go into the story for it, but people thought it was hilarious. And so then suddenly, well, I thought about this guy, but he's got a name. Okay. He's got a name. And then it goes from there. And so it's a way to kind of get your foot in the door to get a little street-viz, you know. We say bad-viz is better than no-viz at all. That's hilarious. And so hopefully, the do-for-book was a reflection of your personality, of your flying skills, your professional skills. Oftentimes, if you're a scribe, or an artist, or both. Or an artist. And so then it's the whole package. So that's why I put this example up. And we're going to run out of time, which is always the best option is to have less time than you need. So this is your recollection of a harrier that caught on fire. And a perhaps unthoughtful security forces person wouldn't let the Brit first responder put the jet out because he didn't have his required badge to get to the fire. Is that a clear? Is that an accurate representation of what happened? Yes, sir. The flames are exaggerated in the 10% rule. Well, of course it is. Yeah. And the rest of the story is pretty much 100% true. But 100% truth is not required. If we went back to the rules, I think in both pages, you would have seen something about 10% truth. 10% is the minimum. And what you would find out is that you can't handle even 10% of the truth, as I said earlier. And it was a good lewdness test about how tough the folks in your squadron were. And if they weren't tough enough in the dooper book, would they have been tough enough in combat? Probably not. I say no. And so it's a tough business. And you want to, first of all, test the toughest and then improve it. Not by being going off at hominin. And there were many dooper books had rules against scathing personal attacks. So you couldn't just say, hey, I hate this guy. You had to say, dude's an idiot because. And then provide your justification and then be ready to take the slings and arrows who didn't think that Joe was an idiot. It was a beautiful thing. And it created, as I discussed with my daughter who is a fighter, sweater and intel officer on an earlier episode of Figments, the Bar of Venge, and you're on Think Tech Hawaii. It created a safe space for honesty. You know, you could just say what you thought. Then if you couldn't take it, you're in the wrong business because it's a tough business. And the beauty of it was the tough business. It was revolved. There are things we look back and maybe Blanche or maybe those are, that's what keeps me from running for political office. Among other things folks, that's not the only thing. But they made us great. And they are in very much reduced in their influence in the fighter world these days because it's evidence, you know. And it is what it is. But there's a place for honesty. Hey, Spike, guess what? We have run out of time already. I knew we would. I'm glad we did. You're a great guy to have as my first guest on my return to Figments. I've really enjoyed getting to know you on the OFP platform and sharing your life journey for another time. I admire you a great deal. Thanks for joining me. So what is, as I always say, what is your next figment? What's the next thing you're going to do? Want to do? Think about doing. Might do, might not. In the principle of figment, you said that it's big things start with little ideas. Yep. And I've got two. That's okay. Great. Absolutely. The first one is autism. And I have wondered what the real cause for it is given that it mostly seems to occur in the Western world. And it seems to have. Personal experience with that that is largely defined much of your life for years. Yes. Can I say that? I can. Yes, we can. And I have a theory. I just don't know who to promulgate it to. And it's that it seemed, I wonder if it is caused not by vaccines in general, but by people with a hyper-efficient immune system that overreacts to multiple vaccinations at once, i.e. the MMR shot at one year of age. Well, we're not going to solve that today, but that's certainly not a worthy thing. But that's, that's your other one. Um, Air Malaysia 370. I think it's, I think it's at the coast of Africa, not where they threw the arc around the Indian Ocean because a hijacked airplane or a disabled airplane is not going to fly a 2,000 mile DME arc around a satellite that they didn't even know was there. Yeah, we could debate that. We could debate that. Maybe we will on a subsequent episode. I have a theory too. It's a little less conspiratorial a little more fire in the cockpit because I had a fire in the cockpit. I do believe it's that part, but I think their ranging rationale hasn't flown it. And you've flown, that was a 7777 and you flew 747s. And I trained on the triple, but never flew it. Okay. Another topic for another time. Yes, sir. So, thanks, Spike. It's been a blast. Like I said, I'm really happy that you and I have formed a digital friendship and look forward to hoisting a cool one someday in person. Yes, sir. Folks, before I close, I have to say what would Fig do. From the do-for-books, social media, world, I'd say two things. I would be receptive to constructive or destructive feedback. It is what it is. Take it as an input. Don't get your feelings hurt. And then fundamentally to do that, you have to protect legitimate free speech. And there are a lot of folks on either side of any aisle who are not so cool about free speech. And we should oppose that. It's a fundamental element of our republic and our way of life here in the United States. So that's it. I do have, of course, QR codes. Get your phones out quickly. I'll give you enough time. Maybe you can pause it. You know, there's a pause thing on YouTube. And you can find previous episodes of Figments on Reality, the early commentary show, and of Figments, the power of imagination. And as always, please love and support and donate to Think Tech Hawaii, a great platform for citizen journalists like yours truly. Big leaf over and out, see you in a couple weeks. Like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.