David Burke

Those aircraft have created the environment by which Iran is really going to have a very difficult time preventing us from operating in their airspace wherever and however we want.

Yeah, it's good to be here.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's a good question.

And it's something that actually is common, that there's a misunderstanding.

There are fighter pilots in the Marine Corps.

Naval aviation in general consists of both Navy and Marine Corps pilots, and we work really closely together.

So all of foundational initial training that Marines go through is...

Navy training.

So you might have a class that's 80% Navy, 20% Marines, and we go through all the same training.

And back when I was doing this in the mid to late 90s, when I was getting my start, we were flying a lot of the same airplanes, much like we do now.

And so I ended up getting selected for the Marine Corps to fly the F-18 Hornet.

And it turns out that the Marine Corps had, you know, well over a dozen F-18 squadrons, and a handful of them would deploy on Navy aircraft carriers.

And I was in a squadron in the

I was attached to a Navy carrier.

So I spent four years as a Marine flying off Navy ships, aircraft carriers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I went to Top Gun as a student, as a Marine, and there's a relatively small percentage of Marines that get to go.

And then I was invited back to be an instructor on a staff of 25 instructor pilots

They have three Marine pilots at the Navy's weapons school, which we call Top Gun.

So I was very, very lucky as a Marine to have a career that I flew fighters for the Marine Corps, but very closely connected and integrated with the Navy.