CORONADO, CA — U.S. Navy pilot Lt. Nick Reynolds will soon be awarded the Navy Achievement Medal (NAM), after successfully firing a missile on a friendly F-18 fighter jet during live-fire training, officials said.
Lt. (Junior grade) Alan Dawkins has been sent to the hospital after narrowly surviving the Mar. 29 attack on his aircraft.
Recalling the incident, Lt. Reynolds said the realization set in just seconds after he fired upon his shipmate, telling reporters, “there was a split second of panic on my part, but then I started getting incongruous messages over the radio. I kept hearing things in my headset like ‘did Dawkins’ plane just blow up? One of you lucky bastards is getting a medal for this,’ and ‘well he owed me money, but I guess I could eat a hundred bucks for that view … ’”
Reynolds has consistently claimed the incident was a mistake, but squad mates continue to refer to his accident as a “not-so-negligent discharge,” usually accompanied by smiles, winks, and friendly elbow jabs.
