ally grew up in the saddle. By the time I was old
enough to do much riding, Dad had his own ranch, and I helped earn my
keep by working for him. Under those circumstances, I just naturally
learned to like horses."

"Guess I never thought of it like that. I was a city boy myself. The
only horses I ever saw were the ones the cops rode. I didn't get much
chance to became familiar with the beasts."

* * * * *

"Well, you don't know what you missed. It's just impossible to describe
what it's like to use a high-spirited and well-trained horse in your
daily work. The horse almost gets to sense what you want him to do next.
You don't have to direct his every move. Just a word or two, and a touch
with your heel or the pressure of your knee against his side, and he's
got the idea. A well-trained horse is perfectly capable of cutting a
particular cow out of a herd without any instructions beyond showing him
which one you want."

"It's too bad the Army did away with the cavalry. Sounds like you belong
there, not in the Air Force."

"No, because if there's anything I like better than riding a good horse,
it's flying a fast and responsive airplane. I've been flying fighters
for almost seventeen years now, and I'll be quite happy to keep flying
them as long as they'll let me. When I can't fly fighters any more, then
I'll go back to horses. And much as I like horses, I hope that's going
to be a long time yet."

"You must hate this assignment, then. How come I never hear you complain
about it?"

"The only reason I don't complain about this assignment is that I
volunteered for it. And I've been kicking myself ever since. When I
heard about the Rocket Interceptors, I was really excited. Imagine a
plane fast enough to catch up with an invading ballistic missile and
shoot it down. I decided this was for me, and jumped at the assignment.
They sounded like the hot fighter planes to end all hot fighter planes.
And what do I find? They're so expensive to fly that we don't get any
training missions. I've been up in one just once, and that was my
familiarization flight, when I got into this assignment last year. And
then it was only a ride in the second seat of that two-seat version they
use for checking out new pilots. I just lay there through the whole
flight. And as far as I could see, the pilot didn't do much more. He
just watched things while the autopilot did all the work."

"Well, don't take it too