By Kristin Davis

Retired Navy Cmdr. Jack Gillett first trained his eyes on the sky as a boy growing up on the California coast. He’d join his mother, a volunteer with the Aircraft Warning Service during World War II, at observation posts and watch for aircraft all night. He never forgot the thrill of phoning in their sightings.

Gillett spent his spare money on model airplanes. There were plastic ones and wooden ones and then flying models.

“Even in high school, dating took a backseat to model airplanes,” he recalled. “My dad told me he was not surprised when I went into aviation.”

Gillett was enrolled in junior college when Navy recruiters showed up and offered to take students to an airport for a ride in trainer planes. He learned that if he had 60 credit hours and could pass a series of tests, he could begin flight training. It was February 1964.

“I didn’t know a Vietnam War was coming,” he said. “But the Navy did.”

Previously aimless, Gillett had found his passion. And he excelled, pinning on his wings at 21. After 15 months as a flight instructor, he reported to his first A-7 squadron. A year and a half later, he was in Vietnam. He would return twice more.