"Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory." |
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Peace Through Victory
Married Pilots Hook-up In-Flight
He - Navy Lt. Jeff McLean flies an F/A-18 Super Hornet.
She - Air Force Capt. Christine McLean pilots a USAF refueling plane.
The plane (bottom) of Navy Lt. Jeff McLean is refueled over Pakistan by the plane of his wife of one year, Christine McLean, whom he had not seen in six months. The photograph was taken by his wingman. The refueling rendezvous was a chance encounter on Jeff’s final mission.
Both 27, high school sweethearts, married in May 2009, the couple has spent most of their first year of marriage apart. Really far apart. As in different cockpits in different airspaces.
They had tried to coordinate their flying schedules but weren't successful. Then on Jeff's final and 40th flight on this deployment he rendezvoused with the air refuelers over Pakistan and was happy to see it was his wife's plane.
Though it was dark and turbulent - difficult conditions for aerial refueling - Jeff McLean said it was one of the highlights of the deployment.
"After she gave me about 10,000 pounds of fuel, I flew right up next to her cockpit. She turned on the lights and waved, and I could see her, but it's pretty dark in my jet, so I'm not sure that she ever saw me waving... We were able to fly together all the way out of country and back over the Arabian Sea at 500 knots, then I had to head back and land on the ship and she headed back to her base. As we broke apart, I lit my afterburner, which hopefully looked pretty cool in the dark. It was an absolutely perfect flight."
Christine McLean told her mother-in-law, Mary McLean, that she always took her camera on refueling flights on the chance her husband would be one of the many planes getting refueled.
Via: Michael Yon's Facebook Fan Page
This article from the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel Online: Married pilots hook up on military refueling mission (posted July 1, 2010)
She - Air Force Capt. Christine McLean pilots a USAF refueling plane.
The plane (bottom) of Navy Lt. Jeff McLean is refueled over Pakistan by the plane of his wife of one year, Christine McLean, whom he had not seen in six months. The photograph was taken by his wingman. The refueling rendezvous was a chance encounter on Jeff’s final mission.
Both 27, high school sweethearts, married in May 2009, the couple has spent most of their first year of marriage apart. Really far apart. As in different cockpits in different airspaces.
They had tried to coordinate their flying schedules but weren't successful. Then on Jeff's final and 40th flight on this deployment he rendezvoused with the air refuelers over Pakistan and was happy to see it was his wife's plane.
Though it was dark and turbulent - difficult conditions for aerial refueling - Jeff McLean said it was one of the highlights of the deployment.
"After she gave me about 10,000 pounds of fuel, I flew right up next to her cockpit. She turned on the lights and waved, and I could see her, but it's pretty dark in my jet, so I'm not sure that she ever saw me waving... We were able to fly together all the way out of country and back over the Arabian Sea at 500 knots, then I had to head back and land on the ship and she headed back to her base. As we broke apart, I lit my afterburner, which hopefully looked pretty cool in the dark. It was an absolutely perfect flight."
Christine McLean told her mother-in-law, Mary McLean, that she always took her camera on refueling flights on the chance her husband would be one of the many planes getting refueled.
Via: Michael Yon's Facebook Fan Page
This article from the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel Online: Married pilots hook up on military refueling mission (posted July 1, 2010)
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