The Korea Times

[MORNING CALM TALES] The ride of a lifetime

The runway blurred beneath us. A second later, the afterburner ignited, and the F-16 surged forward with a force that pushed me deep into the seat. Rain streaked across the canopy as the jet roared down the runway at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. Then the nose lifted and the ground dropped away. Within moments, we were climbing through the clouds. Strapped into the back seat, helmet on and oxygen mask tight against my face, I had a sudden thought that still seemed slightly unreal: Just days earlier, it was a classroom at Yonsei University, teaching English. Now it was the back seat of an F-16, one of the most advanced fighter jets ever built, punching through the clouds over the Korean Peninsula. The path that led to that cockpit began with a newspaper story. At the time, I was also working as a feature writer for The Korea Times, covering a variety of stories about the United States Forces Korea (USFK). One of them involved a dramatic rescue mission in the West Sea. Late one foggy night in February 2001, a pregnant Korean woman living on a small island near the Northern