EWO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was the Scarf Drop for Jasons flight. (I'll explain more about his flights scarf drop in another post) The Scarf Drop is a tradition in the AF (dating back to WWII) when someone receives a scarf (an actual scarf) representing the field they are in (only for aviators; pilots, nav, EWO's and WSO's). The Scarf Drop yesterday was the selection for NAV (Navigator) guys or EWO (Electronic Warfare Officer) guys so they could go into their separate training. Everyone competes for a given number of EWO slots and they get to chose based on their class ranking. Jason has been working so hard and we've been praying so hard that he'd receive an EWO slot. Before now in his training he had been given a taste of what it would be like to be a NAV and an EWO. He really enjoys the EWO side of things.

As an EWO his main job in an aircraft will be to protect the aircraft from things like missiles and guns. He'll know all sorts of countermeasures to protect his plane from the "bad guys" who will most likely be trying to shoot him down. Do not confuse this with a WSO (Weapons System Officer, that guy is the one who deals with dropping the missiles and bombs). Jason deals with radars, frequencies and sounds in order to break down an enemy's air defense system.

There's not much else I know about what he will do. It's all top-secret and classified. Everything I've mentioned is from a little packet given out on the first day of training from their commander.

His training is going to be hard. Most days he'll be gone from 9am until about 6pm. Once again, everything he has to study is locked up and he cannot bring it home. Cpt. Uli, one of his flight commanders and teachers, went through this same training a while back. He said it was terrible while he was going through it and now that he's back to teach it, it's still terrible. I'll try to have patience. I'm hoping to get to know other wives of the LT's in Jasons flight so I'll have some military support. I know this is also preparing me for when Jason will be TDY when he'll be gone for weeks/months at a time.