One summer, Ken and I drove south to New Orleans.  A carrier he had operated off of was docked and we went aboard.  We walked to the front of the carrier's landing strip and looked over the edge.  There were dents in the front and on the edge of the ramp.  "That's Mack.  Right there, that's Burt...they didn't do what I told them to do."

When a pilot comes in low, the LSO uses his paddles to give him a "wave off".  Sometimes the pilot thinks he knows better than the LSO and keeps coming.  But the ship is in a valley--it looks like it is a long way below--but as he the pilot approaches, the front of the ship begins to rise back up and the pilot can't escape hitting the end of the ramp.

Life is like that.  We are positive that we know what we are doing.  That our way of thinking is better than God's way of thinking.  And before it is all over, we crash and burn.  You would think that we could benefit from the mistakes that others make.  But obviously, guys hit the ramp over and over.  They believe in their own abilities rather than the expertise of the LSO.

"It doesn't matter how many touch and goes you make on land, nothing can prepare you for a rolling, pitching deck,"  Ken said.  "You absolutely have to trust the LSO."

When landing lights replaced the LSO, you would think that nobody would ever hit the ramp again.  But they do.  Experienced, talented, intelligent people make the same mistakes over and over again.  They don't believe it when the yellow and red lights on the carrier deck are flashing.

That's why our car insurance rates are so high.  That's why military aviator's life insurance is so high.

Jeremiah 7:23 "But this thing I commanded them saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you."