I called my friend Carolyn--whom I would trust with my life--to see if she thought I should put this next story in a blog and she said, "Yes.  Emphatically yes.  It's funny.  It's relevant."  So here it is.

When Ken took that squadron to Japan in the Skyray, they were charged with defense of the Japanese and S. Korean borders.  Russia had been testing the perimeters of the air space.  And up until the Skyray, we were slow.  The Russian air knew how many minutes it would take before we could intercept them.  It was a game they played called, "See if America can really protect Japan and S. Korea."

The cold war was a reality during that time.   Russia and the U.S. were stockpiling nuclear weapons and the world was on edge.  Americans were building bomb shelters in their back yards.  It was a scary time. 

When Ken's squadron arrived in Japan, the time it took to intercept the Russians was cut dramatically.  The Skyray was a triangle--literally a wing--pretty much attached to a rocket when they lit the afterburner on takeoff.  Their climb rate from ground to intercept was unmatched in the world.  But nobody had seen the plane in action.  The Russians wanted to interface and get our capabilities.  They found out.  First time out, Ken said, "We intercepted them way before they were expecting it."

"What did you do?" I asked him.

"Well, we pulled up along side of them in formation, where we could look them in the eye through their cockpits.  They gave us the finger, we gave them the finger, and everyone went home.  They found out what we already knew.   We were better than them.  Give somebody the finger and you can call off a war.  Beats bullets."

"Did you really do that?"  I asked him. 

"Yep.  That's really what we did.  Day after day.  We gave the Russians the finger."