Jones To The Grindstone

By Karen Jones

It is a cultural icon, the movie “Top Gun”. The film was released in 1986 and made the blood pump of women and men alike. Women viewers were attracted to the shirtless, oiled and shiny, buffed actors strutting about on the volleyball court with their dog tags casually slung over their backs—and perhaps even more to the thin and corny romantic plotline. But, the men were, too. The men may not have wanted to make-out with Tom Cruise, or “Maverick”, but they wanted to be him, or even Val Kilmer’s, “Ice”. With lines and atmosphere dripping with sexual desire, such as seductive yet innocent instructor Kelly McGillis’ character cooing to Maverick about his flying, “It’s dangerous,” followed by his sultry response, “I’m dangerous,” just makes everybody weak in the knees—oh, baby. The women want that bad boy and the men crave to be what women want (cue: Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone”).

That imagery definitely plays into the draw of being a United States fighter pilot. If a man can get through the rigors of flight school and place highly enough in his class, he can select to be specialized in the fighter jet. It starts right in the beginning of instruction, only the best in the class can be a fighter pilot. Talk about an ego boost! Not only does the candidate have to score well on exams, show his skills in the cockpit, maintain physical condition that can handle “pulling ‘G’s”, but he gets to be top dog at the sausage party. (Yes, women are fighter pilots, too, but in the extreme minority.) Roll all these qualities into one man and you get one hell of a Top Gun, but more often a Top Prick.

It is widely understood that the ‘fighter bases’ in the Air Force are hard to live on if you aren’t part of the Cool Pack. It’s almost like high school with the perceived pyramid structure of social importance. Besides, there’s nothing like cash bonuses to reinforce such beliefs. For example, pilots (fighter or not) receive additional “flight pay” every month and the occasional large “signing bonus” if the flyer commits to “X” more years of piloting for the Air Force. This negatively manifests itself if the fly-boys rub it in to the non-flyers’ faces, or who some of flyers call “shoe clerks”. (This serves to imply that unless you fly, you are nothing but a “wanna-be” who fetches shoes for a living.) I can remember one F-15E pilot showing off his Rolex to a shoe clerk and saying, “Oh, that’s right, these kinds of things aren’t in your budget. Sorry.”

Just about all career fields have this kind of activity going on in its midst. Another good example is the medical field, where the surgeons are considered to be the hotties. In fact, the surgeons have their own current TV show demonstrating this, “Grey’s Anatomy.” Mc Dreamy and Mc Steamy aren’t the run-of-the-mill family practitioners now, are they? Too, surgeons make more money than the regular doctors do. However, in all fairness, any specialty that requires additional training and extraordinary skills most definitely does deserve extra pay. I mean, that’s the “American way”. However, it seems today the American way is also to allow the extra smarts and bonus payments to morph one into the American Asshole.