My squadron ops officer had a peculiar view of this inspection, however. As one of the Seagull (have to throw rocks at them to make them fly) brothers I mentioned earlier in the book, he flew very little and absolutely would not fly in command with ASEV evaluators. His mantra said this was a reservist inspection and they should carry the load, not the technicians. //

A few weeks after that I dropped by Base Personnel to review the OER to see what kind, and level, of endorsements I had received. In reading the front of the form, however, I saw the statement citing my flying in command for ASEV had been removed.

A tough call
The next time I was in the squadron I stepped into the ops officer’s office and brought this to his attention. “I can’t find the sentence about me flying in command with ASEV,” I said.

He frowned and nodded his head to imply he had had to make a difficult decision and said: “I know, Jay, it was a tough call but I had to remove that sentence. It would have made all the other ARTS [especially him] look bad.”

Stunned, I couldn’t even speak, and didn’t.

I turned, walked down the hall to another office, and called Larry Mercker at Westover.

“Larry,” I said, “I’m ready to move, is that position still open?”

It was, and off I would go to Westover for the next five years as ADO.”