Top Gun

This post is not about the movie “Top Gun”. It’s about a boy twenty years ago standing in front of a newspaper stand and gazing to a magazine that changed his life. The boy usually checked the comics at that specific stand (actually the only one in town) looking for the recent adventures of James Bond and Spiderman. But that day was different. On the front page there was a guy smiling and the most bizarre looking airplane he ever saw.

Somehow he managed to persuade his parents to buy the very first issue of the magazine that brought a different world into the life of that young boy in a small town in Eastern Hungary. Reading about the stealth fighter, the Top Gun school, the night landing on an aircraft carrier (which is like jumping off a chair in a dark room so that a stamp on the floor would stick onto your tongue), and the boy for the first time new exactly what he wanted to do.

Applying for the military high school served only one purpose: to get into the Air Force Officer’s Training College and become a fighter pilot. After countless tests and medical exams he was finally there. But the first year wasn’t exactly as he imagined. He and his mates were not allowed to get close to the airfield not even an airplane. Their first flying lesson was planed for the second year and the only training that was close to flying was the parachute training at the end of the year. Getting close to the long awaited training they felt something is off. Upon starting the training the got the news that it’s going to be only a theoretical one, and that they are not allowed to jump. Then a meeting were called together where a Major General broke the news: as of that day all training is canceled.

The boy world was in ruins. Years of dreaming, hard working were done for nothing.

Today this boy is watching the movie on telly and is far away from his dreams. His life took a different course and sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s for the good or bad.

Many dreams came true, many more were not even close to it. Hopefully at the end he can tell: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)