Here is one of the types of things you service academy parents have to look forward to. My son graduated from USNA in 1998, flew F-14s for his first squadron tour and, through hard work, good grades at USNA, and dedication, got accepted at the Navy Test Pilot School in NAS, Patuxent River, MD. After graduation, he is required to do a “pay back” tour at one of the test squadrons and therefore gets to be an honest-to-gosh Chuck Yeager test pilot, testing things and flying profiles on Navy jets that have never been flown before. Of course, TPS was intense and time consuming, and, with the war in Iraq, all shore-duty squadrons are undermanned, so for the last few years, he has been extremely busy. I started to hint that his grandparents (my parents) who are in their 90’s aren’t going to be around forever and that he needed to visit and spend some quality time with them. Well, last weekend my daughter-in-law had a family wedding in Pittsburg so my son, with a free weekend, came to visit his grandparents. He didn’t drive down. He brought one of the Navy jets he has been testing. He parked it at the local airport and spent the entire weekend with his grandparents. They ate the whole thing up. When he left on Sunday, there was a lady at the airport who was actually choked up and misty eyed from watching his and his grandparent’s interactions. Of course his dad was kind of excited also, but he would never admit it. Before you GAO types get all worked up, they are required to fly cross-county flights for their annual qualifications.