Sundays' Quote: While we sleep

"Most of us, most of the time, live in blissful ignorance of what a small, elite, heroic group of Americans are doing for us night and day.  As we speak, all over the globe, American sailors and submariners and aviators are doing something very dangerous. ... Right now, somewhere around the world, young men are landing high-performance jet aircraft on the pitching decks of aircraft carriers -- at night!  You can't pay people to do that; they do it out of love of country, of adventure, of the challenge.  We all benefit from it, and the very fact that we don't have to think about it tells you how superbly they're doing their job -- living on the edge of danger so the rest of us need not think about, let alone experience danger."

-- George F. Will, January 28, 1986 (published on the day of the Challenger disaster); respectfully borrowed from the homepage of Strike Fighter Squadron One Five One {VFA-151, the "Vigilantes"}

(click to enlarge)

F-18C Hornets assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron One Five One return to Naval Air Station Lemoore (California) after completion of Exercise Sentry Eagle, a biannual, two-day exercise that emphasizes defending friendly airspace and assets from adversarial forces.  Photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. James L. Harper, Jr.