This photograph hangs on my wall. It's 20 years old. It's of four guys, standing in front of an airplane. The airplane is parked on the deck of an aircraft carrier. The guys are all dressed in olive-drab colored flight-suits, with colorful patches stuck on at various places via velcro.

One of them's wearing a kaffiyah he bought in a bazaar in Israel. He'd been a merit scholar, with an SAT score in the stratosphere. He could tell me things about quantum physics I could not believe, if I'd had the patience to listen, which I didn't. Number 2 in the picture is the senior officer. He has been the crew's commander, and I've alternated flying the airplane from the left seat with him. He's square-jawed, G.I. Joe in sunglasses, trying to demonstrate fitness for command of a squadron. He's done a pretty good job at this, so I have no doubt he'll get one. At the moment of the photograph, he's laughing in bemusement at the antics of number 3, who has jumped into the arms of number 4.

The guys are smiling in the sun, happy to be alive. It was not at all pre-ordained that they would be so, at that time and place. The four guys have had scares over the weather, at times not being sure they'd be able to make it back to the ship, and make the hazardous arrested landing. They've had scares over mechanical failures, at times losing engines, hydraulic pumps, electrical generators, you name it. They had a scare when Israeli surface-to-air missile radar locked them up. You don't mess around with those guys...If they'd launched, we wouldn't have been there, posing for that picture.

The airplane bears my name, painted on the side. I am #3 in the picture, and I'd just turned to #4 and, like Bugs Bunny in an animated cartoon from the 1940s, told the poor guy to "carry me!" As I was an officer, and he an enlisted man, he had no choice but to comply. Stout fellow, he benched pressed about 9000 pounds, and could have twisted my head off with one flick of his wrist, had he been irritated at me. I'd been a pretty good pilot for him, though, and hadn't scared him unduly, so he wasn't irritated. In the picture he looks at me as if to say "look what this doofus has done, now."

The airplane is a Lockheed S-3A Viking, and is the maid of all work on the carrier. Antisubmarine Warfare, Surface surveillance, quick reaction logistics missions (translation: we need a replacement part, and we don't have one on-board. Let's send an S-3 to Sigonella, Sicly or Key West, Florida to pick one up and fly it back. Lieutenant ring_wraith, report to the briefing room!)

We'd worked so hard. We'd studied. We'd gone through simulator sessions.

We'd tracked Soviet submarines, and taken those grainy spy-camera photographs of Soviet Krivak class frigates. We'd videotaped countless recon photographs of tankers and container ships with our flir.

I'm amazed that I don't have walkman earphones on, in the picture. In the day, I was constantly glued to my walkman. Oingo Boingo, Stevie Ray Vaughn. The Ramones. AC/DC. (For those about to Rock....WE SALUTE YOU! This was appropriate prior to a catapult launch, for some reason.) I had actually found a cassette of the SKA band English Beat in the Ship s Store. This helped mightily to see me through.

So long ago, now. So confident, we were. So ready for anything. I wish I felt that way now.