Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [61]
I accepted that, but the general’s attitude surprised me when he then took me to task personally. “Well, let me get this straight, Colonel Aldrin. Why do you call this place the Aerospace Research Pilot School? Don’t you think a better name would be the Air Force Test Pilot School?”
I replied that we did have the test pilot curriculum, but we also had a “zoom curriculum” to test NF-104 jets specially fitted with six-thousand-pound thrust rocket motors to familiarize students with some of the techniques required in space flight. The modified 104 jet could zoom well above 100,000 feet, providing the pilot with ninety seconds of weightlessness. “We’re trying to run a top-notch test pilot school and astronaut training facility here, sir,” I offered.
General Brown cut me off short. “Colonel Aldrin, that’s the problem. Why do you have that course here? We aren’t training astronauts for NASA. Let NASA train their own astronauts; your job is to train test pilots for the Air Force. So change the name of this school immediately to the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and get rid of those 104s and your ‘zoom’ curriculum.” The general’s attitude was almost as if he were saying, “Oh, you came from NASA and you think you’re hot stuff around here because you were an astronaut? Well, I don’t.”
The instructor pilots at the school stood silent, appalled and embarrassed for me. To castigate me like that in front of my young staff was extremely unwise and exhibited poor leadership on the part of the general, and it was futile to argue with him.
A short time later, General Bob White and I met together to discuss my future. The Air Force offered me a project to fill my remaining months, but it required me to move to Los Angeles. I made a counteroffer. I could legitimately retire on March 1 rather than wait until June, if the Air Force would allow my family to keep our home until the children could finish school. General White thought that could be worked out, and it was. My retirement benefited both of us: General White could get back to being the commanding general at Edwards, and I could get back to being a functioning human being.
On March 1, 1972, General Jimmy Doolittle came to Edwards for my brief but formal retirement ceremony. I appreciated Dad’s friend being there, and his continued support. General White was also there, as were Ted Twinting and all of my instructors and their students, who filled the large airplane hangar and stood in formation in one last show of support.
I have often wondered why the Air Force chose me to head up the test pilot school. They could easily have said, “Buzz, we don’t have anything for you right now, but let’s talk in six months to a year.”
My friend Alan Bean helped put it in perspective for me. An eighteen-year veteran with the space program, Alan flew to the moon as lunar module pilot on the Apollo 12 mission. Years later, when asked about the decision to appoint me as commandant of the test pilot school, Alan concurred with the Air Force:
I thought it was a good decision. I thought Buzz was the perfect person for that position. He had airplane experience as a fighter pilot, having shot down some enemy planes. He had experience in space; few other candidates had that. He was certainly an icon, a hero to every student who came through that school. Unfortunately, when some other astronauts left NASA, they took positions for which they were not qualified. But I thought Buzz was perfectly qualified for the commandant’s job. He could continue flying while being a positive role model.2
Alan’s comments are heartwarming, but at the time I probably wouldn’t have agreed with them. I was only forty-two years of age when I retired from the Air Force on March 1, 1972, even earlier than had been announced. I had been the commandant of the test pilot school a mere nine months,