EP3 Come and Take It

CREW PATCH STORY

Come and Take It
First, I'd like to express how happy I am that my patch caught on in Whidbey! I was driving home one day, not long before I checked out, and saw a car with the original Gonzales flag sticker on a car, and had an epiphany. I can't believe it took me so long! In any case, I'm now seeing random O-5 walking around in Jacksonville with it, and it makes me really, really happy.
From the outside, VQ should be the worst command in the Navy. No one is ever home, we only have a few airplanes, we're sundowning ( ...according to some), and some of the higher leadership doesn't think what we do is important. Instead, however, VQ-1 may very well be the best place to be in the Navy. My brother thought so when he was in the Q, and told me so. I joined the Navy to be in VQ-1, and I have never looked back. The fun we have on the road is unparalleled by any in the community (and they all know it). We love our airplanes dearly, and we can all recount stories of which BuNo is the best for mission systems, which bird always makes it off deck, which bird got you through 4 hours of St. Elmo's fire and thunderstorms overland Philippines, and which bird always made maintenance earn their pay.
As far as the sundown goes...I think it's more of a sunset. In Alaska. In the winter. It's going down at some point, but it might be a long time. I know one thing for sure: the sun was still up at VQ-1 when I left, and it is still up today. As far as some of the leadership in the community not really understanding what we do, I comforted by the fact that leadership above them values what we do and understands that it is absolutely critical to our country. I was reading Robert Gates' autobiography, and it was interesting to note that the only time the Secretary of Defense mentioned any airborne assets, it was ISR (ours truly, too). The decision makers at the highest level rely on these airplanes and crews that go out and complete their mission every day for so much more than we at the lower levels know about.