I WAS 24 YEARS OLD with brand-new wings on my chest, assigned to the A4 Skyhawk Replacement Air Group (RAG) at Naval Air Station Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida. The RAG trained the newly minted naval aviators flying the replacement for the prop-driven Douglas A-1 Skyraider, designed by Collier Trophy-winner Ed Heinemann. Heinemann also designed its replacement, the A-4 Skyhawk jet, which became known as "Heinemann's Hotrod." Its mission spanned from close air support to the delivery of a single nuclear bomb. In 1968,1 was assigned first to a Replacement Air Group (RAG) and then to my fleet squadron, VA-83, both based at Cecil Field, but soon to move to the air wing of the USS John F. Kennedy for its shakedown cruise in the Caribbean, and then on to a deployment in the Mediterranean that would last most of 1969.
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