| Officer: So you want to be a fighter pilot.
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| Recruit: A Starfighter Pilot, Sir.
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| O: And why particularly the Starfighter?
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| R: Because Sir, I am in love with this aircraft. |
| This magnificent engine of
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| steal and gleam.
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| O: That’s very poetic. |
| Please continue.
|
| R: This aerocynamic Delilah. |
| Its uptilted wings and sidewinder rockets.
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| Its clear curving cockpit cover, the whirling of dials and needles.
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| The illustrious uniform of the Federal German Airforce. |
| The click of the heels
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| in salute, the flare of the jacket, the wide, long-skirted hang of it, and oh,
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| the low shiny peak of the cap.
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| O: I think that’s enough.
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| R: But Sir, the danger, and the glory of death.
|
| A young and dashing life gone up in flames. |
| Blonde maidens weeping.
|
| To die for one’s country.
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| To set forth in a silver lance too joust with the forces of darkness.
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| O: They don’t always crash, you know.
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| R: It would be an honour to crash in such a plane.
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| O: To be mangled and scorched?
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| R: To be hideously mutilated beyond the recognition of one’s own mother.
|
| O: Is that makeup you’re wearing?
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| R: Makeup, Sir?
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| O: Makeup. |
| Makeup. |
| You know it’s what the ladies wear.
|
| R: Not all ladies wear makeup, sir.
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| O: Well what’s that black stuff around your eyes. |
| Is that mascara?
|
| R: All right. |
| I can see it’s no good lying to you, sir. |
| I confess.
|
| It is mascara. |
| But… only a little bit.
|
| O: What on Earth for?
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| R: It’s my mother, sir.
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| O: Your mother?
|
| R: You see my mother was the first woman to fly the Atlantic in a (pause) Gaseo
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| Glider.
|
| O: A Gaseo Glider?
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| R: A machine of my father’s invention. |
| You see he was too much of a
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| professional aeronautical inventor to actually fly it himself, so my mother
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| took it, and tried to fly it singlehanded across the Atlantic.
|
| O: And what happened?
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| R: She… she crashed. |
| Spun down into the sea and was never seen again.
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| They found only her false eyelashes, floating.
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| And so, you see, ever since I have worn mascara in her sacred memory.
|
| O: I see.
|
| R: Well sir. |
| Do I get a plane?
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| O: In view of the confessions you have just made, which must have taken a great
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| deal of courage, I consider you an ideal type for the job.
|
| There’s a plane for you waiting on the runway. |
| The sergeant will give you an
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| instruction manual on the way out.
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| Oh, and by the way, eh, Von Trippenhoff…
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| R: Sir?
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| O: Don’t let the CO catch you wearing makeup on duty. |
| At least not in uniform,
|
| understand?
|
| R: But Sir…
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| O: Alright then. |
| But very subtly applied, is that clear?
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| R: I understand, Sir.
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| O: Right on, Von Trippenhoff.
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| R: Righty Oh, Sir. |