Anytime I get to help the firefighters, I will. I'm real lucky to be in a position to help.
We have built a total of about 1250 of this aircraft, but only fifty were allowed to be used as fighters - as interceptors. And out of this fifty, there were never more than 25 operational. So we had only a very, very few.
We had at our disposal the first operational jet, which superseded by at least 150 knots the fastest American and English fighters. This was a unique situation.
People come to me and they're like, 'You're hand picking fighters.' I don't pick my fights.
A lot of fighters have repetitive workouts.
There are a lot of great fighters in this sport, but they just don't bring what I bring to the table.
For me, Jersey represents going through what you can go through and still surviving. That's the cool thing about people from the Tri-State area. We're fighters. We're survivors, and we're edgier than anyone else on Earth.
Whether it's police officers, firefighters, first responders, or 911 dispatchers, many dedicated Americans work long hours, and often in difficult conditions, to make sure that when someone's in need, they can help.
You need fighters like me to battle, because frankly The New York Times and the Washington Post are not going to fight the fights that I do.
I flew fighters for the Navy in San Diego for three years, went and did my post-graduate education, and then I was a test pilot in Patuxent River, Maryland, for a few years. I was back in the fleet in the Navy when I was selected to come back here to NASA to become an astronaut.
