Light
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HERE AND GONE... July saw the Nightmares forced to make some hard decisions about training priorities with the confluential issues of imprecise radar variant deliveries, powerplant bulletins, air-to-air core competency objectives, flight demonstrations, short-fused TAD requirements, and the offer of a sister squadron's Red Beach forward-based operations deployment all interfering with, or altering existing plans. No plan survives first contact with reality and the Nightmares flexed to accommodate the new contextual realities. 
The unforeseen obligations to send commissioned officers hither and yon to support distant exercises and tactics conferences saw every field grade officer (and many of the company grade) on the road. After the XO, OPSO, AMO, and DOSS all did their time in the barrel, the Cow found himself committed to two weeks of MEFEX (a Marine Expeditionary Force Exercise) service in the Wing's tactical air command center. This immediately followed the week he spent in Virginia and North Carolina attending the promotion of his Panama roommate "Chef" to Brigadier General and assumption of command as Commanding General, 2nd FSSG. The high quality of our Nightmare Non-Commissioned Officers was most apparent during this turbulent period, and the C.O. couldn't have been more impressed with their adroit leadership. 
So it turned out that the Cow was not present during the first three weeks of July and Zieg was charged with steering the course to August. Thanks to the magic of e-mail, Zieg kept the Bovine abreast of his decisions and they were executed exactly as the Cow would have wished. This was especially true when Vino and Lurch flew the squadron's last two "Day Attack" AV-8B's to the Harrier Training Squadron at Cherry Point, N.C. Thus, 20 July marks the final date that the original version of the "Harrier II" served in Marine Operational "Gun" squadrons. Coincidentally, on the same day Major Art "Turbo" Tomassetti --a former Nightmare pilot-- made aviation history by becoming the first pilot to fly a STOVL (short takeoff, vertical landing) aircraft in supersonic flight. Turbo began the history-making flight of the Joint Strike Fighter nominee from Lockheed with a short takeoff in the STOVL configuration from Edwards AFB CA. He then transitioned to conventional flight and accelerated to supersonic speed. After completing the supersonic dash, Turbo returned to Edwards, converted to the STOVL configuration and landed vertically on the hover pad. 
The Nightmares will spend much of July and August accepting six new radar variant Harriers from Boeing to augment the first two that were transferred from the VMA-311 "Tomcats." This will afford ample opportunity to properly welcome "Boss," the newest Nightmare pilot and a superb addition to the team. 
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