King Jerk
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:38 pm
After hearing how the new JFK cursed out the secret service agent(you know, the guy that will take a bullet to save Kerrys "I'm better than you" butt) for causing Johnny to take a ego bruising tumble while skiing (in front of the cameras no less).
I present the following. I ignored it when I first read it but now it has a ring of truth to it:
I would like to add my two cents about my John Kerry experience. During my career as an Air Force pilot, I spent two years flying a small twin engine prop plane around the Pacific from my base in Okinawa, Japan. On one trip we had to fly Senator Kerry, his congressional aide, and a Navy Captain (Vietnam, A-4 fighter pilot) who was also in Kerry's party to various locations in Vietnam and Cambodia as part of the MIA/POW talks.
> When I met him, he was wearing a shirt with a picture of his sailboat on
>it. I told him I had a small 27 sailboat in Okinawa, he remarked "Oh I
>never sail on anything less than 135 feet." When we first flew him into
>Phnom Penh, he went to the back of the airplane and grabbed the pizza that
>was put aside for the crew and passed it around to his staff. He was never
>offered any pizza because they were supposed to have lunch with the
>Cambodian government once we landed. The pizza would have been our only
>meal that day.
>
>
>
> Then when we picked him up in Cambodia, he was an hour late getting to
>the airport. We could not start the engines and therefore the air
>conditioning until he arrived. Phnom Penh at that time was over 100 degrees
>with 95% humidity and we were basically sitting in a greenhouse behind the
>cockpit windows. When he finally did arrive, we were wringing out our
>clothes from the perspiration. He walks out of the air conditioned car,
>into the airplane and asks us "Could you guys get the air conditioning
>running, I'm a little warm?" The other pilot had to physically restrain me
>from going back there and picking a fight.
>
>
>
> Then we took him into Noi Bai airfield in Hanoi. After we picked him up
>the next day (he stayed the night in Vietnam, we stayed in Bangkok) we
>taxied out, ran up the engines for takeoff, and noticed that our prop rpm
>was vibrating all over the place. We taxied off to the side to look at it,
>but there was a good possibility that there was an engine malfunction and
>the engine may fail if we took off with it. Well, Mr. Senator sticks his
>head up in the cockpit and says "This plane WILL take off, I have a press
>conference in Bangkok in three hours!" (Maybe this is an indication of how
>he will run the FAA). We ran the engines again, and did not have the
>problem, so we took off and made it back.
>
>
>
> During the flight, he told everyone how he had taken a Cessna (a small
>General aviation plane) up with a fighter pilot, and the fighter pilot
>remarked that Kerry was one of the best pilots he had ever seen. I don't
>know about other pilots out there, but it's hard to imagine a little,
>single-engine prop plane pilot being able to show the "right stuff." After
>Kerry left the plane, the Navy Captain came up to us, apologized and said
>basically that "he knows Kerry is a jerk" and that we should be glad we
>don't have to deal with him every day.
I present the following. I ignored it when I first read it but now it has a ring of truth to it:
I would like to add my two cents about my John Kerry experience. During my career as an Air Force pilot, I spent two years flying a small twin engine prop plane around the Pacific from my base in Okinawa, Japan. On one trip we had to fly Senator Kerry, his congressional aide, and a Navy Captain (Vietnam, A-4 fighter pilot) who was also in Kerry's party to various locations in Vietnam and Cambodia as part of the MIA/POW talks.
> When I met him, he was wearing a shirt with a picture of his sailboat on
>it. I told him I had a small 27 sailboat in Okinawa, he remarked "Oh I
>never sail on anything less than 135 feet." When we first flew him into
>Phnom Penh, he went to the back of the airplane and grabbed the pizza that
>was put aside for the crew and passed it around to his staff. He was never
>offered any pizza because they were supposed to have lunch with the
>Cambodian government once we landed. The pizza would have been our only
>meal that day.
>
>
>
> Then when we picked him up in Cambodia, he was an hour late getting to
>the airport. We could not start the engines and therefore the air
>conditioning until he arrived. Phnom Penh at that time was over 100 degrees
>with 95% humidity and we were basically sitting in a greenhouse behind the
>cockpit windows. When he finally did arrive, we were wringing out our
>clothes from the perspiration. He walks out of the air conditioned car,
>into the airplane and asks us "Could you guys get the air conditioning
>running, I'm a little warm?" The other pilot had to physically restrain me
>from going back there and picking a fight.
>
>
>
> Then we took him into Noi Bai airfield in Hanoi. After we picked him up
>the next day (he stayed the night in Vietnam, we stayed in Bangkok) we
>taxied out, ran up the engines for takeoff, and noticed that our prop rpm
>was vibrating all over the place. We taxied off to the side to look at it,
>but there was a good possibility that there was an engine malfunction and
>the engine may fail if we took off with it. Well, Mr. Senator sticks his
>head up in the cockpit and says "This plane WILL take off, I have a press
>conference in Bangkok in three hours!" (Maybe this is an indication of how
>he will run the FAA). We ran the engines again, and did not have the
>problem, so we took off and made it back.
>
>
>
> During the flight, he told everyone how he had taken a Cessna (a small
>General aviation plane) up with a fighter pilot, and the fighter pilot
>remarked that Kerry was one of the best pilots he had ever seen. I don't
>know about other pilots out there, but it's hard to imagine a little,
>single-engine prop plane pilot being able to show the "right stuff." After
>Kerry left the plane, the Navy Captain came up to us, apologized and said
>basically that "he knows Kerry is a jerk" and that we should be glad we
>don't have to deal with him every day.