Bryan Hladik

“Flying fighters is simply an assignment, but being a fighter pilot isn’t. Being a fighter pilot is a state-of-mind. It’s an attitude toward your job, toward the mission, toward the way you live your life. You don’t have to fly fighters to be a fighter pilot. You’ve simply got to have the attitude. There are fighter pilots driving B-52s and fighter pilots hauling trash. They may not have the flash and glamour, but they are the best they can possibly be at the job they’ve got to do. There are pilots who fly fighters and there are fighter pilots. You guys want to be fighter pilots, not pilots flying fighters. Look for the difference.” This is profound stuff for the Korat bar. It makes sense to me. I’ve thought a lot about”
― Ed Rasimus, When Thunder Rolled: An F-105 Pilot over North Vietnam

“Butterfly 44 since that day in northern Laos. Even though he flies a Pilatus Porter, that FAC clearly fills Wimpy’s definition of a fighter pilot. More important, Wimpy’s definition explains a lot about the people I see around me. It explains my own experience at Korat. When I arrived, I was, without doubt, a pilot who flew fighters. I was qualified in the aircraft, but it would have been hard to fit the description of fighter pilot that we’re talking about. I wasn’t sure whether I was a fighter pilot yet. I looked around the table and saw a group of people who all flew fighters but who weren’t all fighter pilots. Some were, some would be, and some might never make the cut. The guys from McConnell when I first arrived at Korat hadn’t been fighter pilots. Oh sure, some were, but most were pilots who flew fighters. It didn’t matter that they had been flying fighters for a longer time than most; they didn’t have the attitude that Wimpy was describing. The guys who had come from Europe and Nellis seemed to”
― Ed Rasimus, When Thunder Rolled: An F-105 Pilot over North Vietnam