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Integrity First. It's core value #1 of the U.S. Air Force... embraced by our leadership, taught in our training programs, and a symbol of the commitment and character of the men and women serving our country.

I learned a valuable lesson about the true meaning of integrity after only serving several years in the Air Force. It wasn't on a combat mission flying an F-16. It was during a training sortie I flew as a brand new instructor pilot, and I learned it flying solo.

It was a rare occasion for an instructor pilot to get to fly solo, but this was my lucky day and I was going to make the most of it. I had finished my maneuvers in the military operating area (MOA) and was performing my last touch and go's in the pattern before landing. Feeling really fired up, I pushed the throttles to full power, gained airspeed, and decided to see how many G's I could "pull" in the pattern. The structural G-limit on the rugged and reliable Cessna T-37B twin engine jet trainer was 6.67 g's, and I was about to see how close I could come to hitting the limit. You see, I was doing what we call in the Air Force, 'hot doggin' it. In other words, I was asking for trouble.

I accelerated to 225 knots, banked it into 90 degrees, and pulled. 5.7G's...One more time...6.4g's...again...6.8 g's! I looked down and did a double take. "Wow," I though to myself, "I just over-g'd the jet!" My first instinct was to reach over and punch off the G-meter (zero out the meter sort of like setting an odometer back to zero). After all, I had seen other, more experienced pilots do it before and besides, the T-37 was tough as nails. What was .127 G's going to do to the jet?

I was faced with a difficult choice, zero out the G-meter and act like nothing had happened. Or immediately land this damaged jet, admit my mistake, and accept the consequences. I cringed as I pondered what my fellow wingmen would think of me. And then I thought to myself...what if my twin brother was to fly that jet tomorrow and the wing fell off? My choice became instantly clear.

My commander wasn't pleased, to say the least. My actions were irresponsible and showed a lack of discipline. Not only was I severely reprimanded, I was grounded from flying for 2 weeks and had to present a briefing to the squadron on the maintenance procedure to inspect the jet for structural damage. The cost of this inspection was $25K of our taxpayer's hard earned money and the plane (a critical training resource for our squadron)

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