Good Things DO Happen!

You know how some times in life the worst people always seem to get over? (Sec. Gates, you're doing so well, why this???)  You know what I'm talking about?  For some reason, the Air Force really hammered this possibility home.  Multiple times.  Over and over again.  To the point it was almost insulting (Not as insulting as how fabricated that story is, UGH-Ed.)

Thankfully, my faith in humanity is restored as the first female Thunderbird pilot, Maj. Nicole "FiFi" Malachowski (Hell of a story behind that call sign), earned a White House fellowship!

As an aside, the White House Fellowship is as big as it gets.  My Air Force idol, Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, was a fellow after he was a Rhodes Scholar.  My State Department idol, Colin Powell, was also a Fellow.  The program is truly a murder's row of leaders.

I had the pleasure of taking Nicole and her fellow Thunderbirds to an Albuquerque Isotopes ball game when they came out to Kirtland for the 2006 Air Show.  She was first class, a beauty outside and in, as she gracefully answered all my questions asinine ("Would you get fired if you flew your F-16 through the Gateway Arch?")  



She had a touching story about an old friend from Long Island that passed away too young, and was incredibly down to Earth for such a groundbreaking woman and officer.

Way to go, FiFi!  You keep making your nation proud.