Posted on 10/19/2009 7:42:01 PM PDT by Saije
A FIGHTER pilot who appeared in the 1986 hit movie Top Gun has been appointed as the highest-ranking US military commander in Asia and the Pacific. Admiral Robert F Willard took control of the US Pacific Command after a ceremony in Hawaii yesterday.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates presided over the proceedings during a stop en route to meetings in Japan and South Korea.
Willard succeeds Admiral Timothy Keating, who is retiring.
The F-14 fighter pilot spent the last two years heading the US Pacific Fleet.
During that time, Willard outlined a new US maritime strategy at the Australian Navy Sea Power Conference 2008, involving a closer cooperation between the US Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.
In the 1980s, Willard was the executive officer at the Navy Fighter Weapons School, also known as "Top Gun".
He was a choreographic consultant to the 1986 film of the same name and portrayed a Soviet MiG-28 pilot shot down by Tom Cruise's character Maverick in the dogfight scene near the end of the film.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Congrats Admiral Willard. I heard that Iceman also has been doing OK all these years...
I ditched high school half a dozen times my senior year to see that movie.
Admiral Robert F. Willard is a Los Angeles native and a 1973 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy!!!!!!!!!!
GO NAVY!
And he did both.
Bravo Zulu, Admiral!
ADM Willard was the CO of my Brother Squadron(VF-51) when I was in VF-111 from 1989-1991. How he escaped the post-Tailhook Naval TacAir purge of the early 1990s I will never know. Anyone know anymore?
He is a friend of my brothers. They both graduated from the Naval Academy in ‘73.
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