David Burke

And I would never want to correlate my experience in combat and certainly the training that we go through to somehow being the same as what they endured in the Pacific in World War II.

That was an unbelievable experience.

But I will tell you, his comments are right.

There is a uniqueness to aviation and a uniqueness to the chaos that goes along in fighter aviation in combat.

But it also speaks to the capability of, I think, two things.

One is we have men and women absolutely willing to do that.

I wouldn't say that they're fearless, but they're absolutely willing to put their fear aside and put themselves in these incredibly chaotic, dangerous, life-risking environments and do it happily.

It also speaks to the ability that we have learned definitely on the shoulders of men like your grandfather how to teach and train this.

And listen, I don't want to be arrogant.

I don't want to make it sound like nobody can do this.

This is something many people can do, but not everyone can do this.

The training program is hard.

It is very dynamic.

There's a lot going on, not just in the flying and fighting, but also with the technology to managing systems in real time.

And so what he described, there's a lot of similarities now.

And we have a blend of these absolutely incredible people willing to risk their lives, but also incredibly well-trained.

The Navy and the Marine Corps and the Air Force have spent decades learning how to train pilots to do exactly what they're doing.

And part of the reason why this has been so successful is how well-trained we are.

We have the best equipment, the best training in the world, and it's built on the legacy of men like your grandfather.

So we're very lucky to have that in our history.