January 8, 2020. National Naval Aviation Museum.

January 8, 2020.  National Naval Aviation Museum.  In the first week of December, a Saudi airman in training at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola killed three people and wounded eight others in what was thought to be a terrorist act.  The assailant was a 21 year-old pilot who wrote of his hatred of Americans because America supports Israel.  

The Naval Aviation Museum is located on the grounds of the Air Station.  In response to the shooting, the Air Station tightened security and limited visitors at the museum to Department of Defense personnel and their guests.  

As we planned our trip to Pensacola, people would tell me to be sure to see the Aviation Museum.  I looked up the Museum online and learned that the simulators, movie theater and flight line were closed due to tightened security.  However, information about access to the museum was confusing.  If you call the information line, you are told that it is open only to DOD personnel.  Online, you are told that you can get on the base with a Real ID or two forms of identification.  I have a Real ID drivers license.  Annie doesn't.  

So, I bypassed the information phone number and called the base security officer.  I told him who I was and what I do.  He said he would make a special exception and allow Annie and me on the base.  Once on, we would be admitted to the museum.  

The air base is five miles in a direct line from our condo, but twenty miles and two bridges by road.  I told the security guy we'd be there in an hour.  Ten minutes later we were in the car.  I plugged the address in the GPS and we set off.  With the morning traffic, road construction and a GPS error, we arrived at the west gate of the air base a little over an hour after my conversation.  I flashed my fancy federal ID.  The young sailor at the gate turned and showed it to the security man in charge.  He called me by name, said he was expecting us and waved us through.  

There may have been a dozen other visitors at the museum.  We gawked at the planes hanging from the ceiling.  There were placards to read at over 150 airplanes.  There were sculptures of airmen who fought in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War.  There was another sculpture of an airman returning from war to the greeting of his family.  There is a mock-up of the Apollo 11 moon landing and Marine One, the helicopter which flew President Nixon from the White House following his resignation.  

We spent nearly three hours in the museum, amazed that there were over 150 aircraft on display starting shortly after the Wright Brothers cheated gravity at Kitty Hawk to modern-day marvels.  I even climbed into one of the jets used by the Blue Angels and posed for a picture with Annie at the shutter.  We had a wonderful time.  

Last night, I was preparing yesterday's blog and I flipped back through earlier blogs to find one I had written on our tour of Fort Pickens.  I found it on the blog entered January 22, 2013.  However, the actual blog that date reported and pictured our tour of the National Aviation Museum at Pensacola.  

Some of the same pictures shown above appear in that blog.  We toured the museum seven years ago and neither Annie nor I remembered that we had been there before!  I am reminded of the time my friend Jerry picked up a Robert Ludlum book - remember the Jason Bourne series - at the airport and read it for three hours on the plane.  When he was nearly back home he realized he had read the book before.  

As I thought about it, I did recall being at the museum before.  The first thing I remembered was the bus ride along the flight line of planes that wouldn't fit in the buildings.  There was no bus to the flight line this trip because of the security concerns.  

I am an idiot.  And, Annie isn't far behind.  In my defense, weak though it may be, we have seen a lot of museums and it is getting harder to keep them straight.  In the small town where we raised our children, old timers would listen to the police scanner at night.  They found that more exciting than watching television.  We'd refer to that group as "being a scanner away from the manor."  Someone needs to get me a scanner.  

With embarrassment and humility, Goodnight.