I did not want to go out at 5:30 in the morning with my stocking cap and my navy pea coat on and shoot lines and grades for the rest of my life.
I studied at the Hebrew University Medical Faculty, graduated, and was an Israel Defense Forces' combat physician on a Navy ship.
Leather pants are my guilty fashion pleasure. I have at least 10 pairs in navy, red, white, dusty pink, grey, suede and black.
My grandpa was in the Navy, but it wasn't something that was expected or planned for me to do.
When I started at Baruch in January 2002, I was almost 23 years old. I'd previously spent five years as an officer the Israeli Navy. I did what I thought you were supposed to do at that age - a little studying and a lot of trying to have fun.
I served in the Israeli Navy, and it's not an easy thing.
I grew up in a Navy family, and like most service families, we traveled a lot and moved a lot. I grew up on both coasts and in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in Rockville, Maryland, and have had a great time doing it.
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.
I was influenced by many, many different people in my student years, and I was always, I guess, immersed in a Navy environment, and so, obviously, that had a big impact when I decided what I wanted to do was go and be a Navy pilot. I was very familiar with the Navy community and felt very comfortable with it.
The Navy credits me with more kills as a sniper than any other American service member, past or present.
