On January 20 Bryan took his final flight in an A-10, and we had his retirement ceremony on the flightline afterward.

Bryan had Avi there at his departure to help send him off. But there were complications with his first jet, so he had to rush down to another one and was finally able to take off.

When he landed, Zoe was there with the crew chief on the radio to help finish the flight. It was specially that he had each kid help with his last-ever flight. We didn’t spray him down with the fire extinguisher like we normally would because we had his retirement ceremony right afterward.

Bryan always wanted to have a small retirement ceremony, and he was able to do that because of COVID. Without being allowed to gather lots of people, and indoors being off-limits, we were limited to inviting just folks from the squadron. It was a special ceremony; his commander Verga spoke, and there were commendations for me and the kids.

Bryan also spoke, and it all felt very surreal that he would no longer be active duty. Then there was the special ceremony when his retirement orders were read. And that was that. We grabbed the fire extinguisher!

Back in the squadron we had ordered Thai food and made a giant key lime pie.