Wind beneath my wings

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?! GUESS!!

...No, I didn't just discover the caps lock key, but rather I was officially winged on February 1st! And I don't mean growing feathers a la Natalie Portman, but rather the small gold pin version.



Before I go into excruciating, mind numbing detail about my graduation, I know a few of you aren't familiar with flight surgery wings or even what having wings means. In my great benevolence, I'll explain it a little more. In the Navy, physicians wear an insignia on their collar that lets people know they are part of the medical corps (others have different insignia), which is a gold oak leaf with an acorn on top (supposed to mean strength and development respectively). That insignia is the center piece, and is framed by the wings on either side to show the flight surgeon's "aerial ties" and signify the fact that I have managed to pass the grueling training required of flight surgeons.

This training includes, but is certainly not limited to, six months of:

1. Many, many, many, lectures on aviation medicine
2. Six weeks of Aviation Preflight Indoctrination (basically learning the basics of flight), which included survival training
3. A few weeks in VT-10, learning how to fly their fixed wing plane called the T-6
4. A few weeks in HT-18, learning how to hover in a helicopter
5. Heavy drinking and continuous whining (who, me?)

We won't mention the fact that numbers 3 and 4 were essentially ungraded events... the student pilots and flight officers get a little touchy about that. Below is a lovely picture I found on a little site called Wikipedia (have you heard of it?) that has the other types of wings in existence in the US Navy.

Moving on... the ceremony in which I graduated and received my wings involved having a chosen family member or friend pin the wings on our uniforms. After my mom pinned on my wings, Tom Skerritt appeared to give me orders to the USS Enterprise to deal with a crisis situation somewhere in the Bering Sea. The Navy is really hard up for flight docs these days, you see.

Now that my training is officially over, I'll be headed off to Japan where I'll be experiencing the REAL Navy for the first time! :)