Talk:Edward Faulkner

USAF Service
The biography states that Faulkner served two years in the USAF as a fighter pilot. Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) on training aircraft lasts for an entire year, and this is followed by months more training at another location on a specific type of aircraft. (Bases vary depending upon the aircraft.) This is followed by finally arriving at a flying squadron where there is constant training to upgrade skills, become a flight leader, etc.

I can't speak for when Faulkner supposedly entered the USAF but in the early 1980s, following successful completion of UPT, new pilots incurred a six-year service commitment. Later this was expanded to eight years, and then ten. In the early 1980s it cost the USAF $1 million to graduate each student from UPT and it intended to get something out of its investment.

Non-flying officers coming out of ROTC typically had a four-year commitment, as did people who enlisted.

The only people of which I'm aware with just two-year commitments were enlisted Army draftees.

The assertion that Faulkner successfully completed officer training (ROTC), UPT and then training on a specific type of fighter, followed by an assignment to a fighter unit, and was done with it all after just two years on active duty, merits further investigation.