Life of a Marine Wife: The Tie Cutting Ceremony

A few days after selection, Jordan and I attended his tie-cutting ceremony. The tie-cutting ceremony is an event that commemorates the pilot's first successful solo flight in the primary portion of flight school. Although Jordan completed his solo months ago in August, the event is only held once a month, and for the past two ceremonies, either Jordan or his instructor were not able to attend. So finally, on the heals of completing primary and selecting his platform, Jordan finally attended his tie-cutting ceremony.

The history behind the ceremony goes back to when aviators wore scarfs,and the instructor in the backseat of the plane would reach forward and yank on the scarf in order to get the student's attention. So by "cutting the tie" the instructor pilot no longer has anything to grab on to in order to get the student's attention to yell at...well at least he has to try a lot harder now. Theoretically the closer to the knot that the tie is cut, the better the pilot in the eyes of his instructor.

Well since this tradition originated, each training squadron has grown and personalized the ceremony of the tie-cutting. For Jordan's squadron, the VT-27 Boomers, the event is held each month for the students who successfully completed their solo flights that month. Each student is brought up in front of the group, and is then put in the hot steat. The student's main, on-wing instructor then tells an embarassing story of his student, usually involving one of the early mishaps that may have occurred while learning to fly the new aircraft. In return, the student then roasts his instructor and embarasses him for something silly he similarly may have done during the course of his instruction. Additionally throughout the night, there are a number of running games that are played, many of which result in dollar fines, or having your guest/date auctioned off!!! It is really quite a fun night, and although it is not intended to be, it was a fun culminating event of Jordan's primary flight school experience.

Jordan's tie cutting was held about an hour away, in the little beach town of Port Aransas. The squadron rented out a building at the Beach Lodge, which is nestled amonst the sand dunes of this gulf coast beach. You literally have to drive on the sand and down the beach itself to reach the location. Needless to say, we got lost, and also probably should not have driven my very low-to-the-ground sports car that day! We finally arrived at the Beach Lodge an hour late, and found ourselves walking in to a very dilapidated, once blue-but now very weathered and gray, beach shack! Perhaps, if we were straight out of California, it's appearance may have shocked us, but ~~we have lost our standards~~ become accostumed to this funky, laid-back Texas-style of coastal living ;) . I was so nervous about arriving so late because I had heard rumors from previous tie-cuttings, that if you arrive late, your date (which would have been me!) gets auctioned off! Anybody who knows me, knows I am not one who enjoys being the center of attention, so the thought of being auctioned off was absolutely terrifying! Luckily, everyone was still socializing during cocktail hour, although referring to it as cocktail hour makes it sound a bit more formal than it really was. I guess I should just say everyone was still standing around drinking beer! Anyway, I sighed a huge sigh of relief, and was so grateful this auctioning off thing only turned out to be rumors!

Once the actual festivities formally began, we were informed of our first running game of the evening. Every student and instructor was to introduce his date, and no two people could use the same descriptive words in their introduction. Repeating a word would result in your date being auctioned off to the highest bidder for the rest of the night. Ahhh, I let my guard down too soon! And well, wouldn't you know it, Jordan and I were standing on the complete opposite end of where they started with the introductions, so Jordan would be the very last one, and therefore have to be the most creative, with his introduction! The terror that I thought I had escaped earlier in the evening surfaced again, and panic mode set in. I couldn't even listen to the introductions, as I kept trying to come up with words other than wife for Jordan to use: partner-in-crime, dang-just used! sweetheart? nope-used again! and so on, and so on.

The introductions and the auctioning game actually turned out to be pretty entertaining. Especially so when one student introduced his guest as his "fabulous grandmother." Well he may have been the only one to use "grandmother" but someone had just used "fabulous"! So poor grandma was up for auction to the highest bidder! Well she was such a good sport, and the whole idea is to keep increasing the bid, so that the student buys back his original date at a high price, raising money for the squadron. Grandma was eventually bought back by her grandson, and luckily for me, Jordan was creative enough to protect me from such embarassment. Although one other student did get his guest auctioned off, who happened to just be a fellow student who came along to enjoy the festivities, when he introduced him as his "awesome" peer. Well with the word "awesome" came the bidding...and wouldn't you know it, Grandma bought herself a brand new date! As payback for her previous experience, she was insistent on being the highest bidder, and all in good fun, the original student chose not to buy back his date, and let Grandma keep his friend for the night! The whole thing was quite entertaining!

Throughout the night there were additional dollar fines, which were created by the instructors to specifically target their students. They went a little something like this....

"If you have a high-and-tight haircut...pay a dollar!"

"If you have ever been to TBS...pay a dollar."

These fines were interjected throughout the entertaining presentation of instructor/student speeches and tie-cuttings that would last the rest of the night. Many students spoke about their instructors quirky and entertaining teaching techniques during their roasts. There were many who told about how their instructors would not stop yelling in the plane, so much so the students could not hear the radio communications from the towers, and then the students were graded down by their instructors for missing radio communications! The instructors stories consisted of funny mishaps that the students encountered when first learning to fly the planes. Well wouldn't you know it, but Jordan's instructor, who happened to be in charge of the event, purposely once again set Jordan up to go very last...

Well, in my opinion he saved the best for last on purpose (although I don't think the instructor knew what was about to hit him) as Jordan had the crowd rolling with laughter as he told the story of his promotion to 1st Lieutenant, when his instructor, who was the one promoting him, wore 2 right footed boots to the ceremoney! He also mentioned, that never having met the Captain previously, I thought his instructor had a war injury or a disability (see-No More Butter Bars for the whole story), and was looking on during the entire ceremoney with pity for the poor guy. Jordan had the picture from his promotion zoomed in on these ill-fitting boots and framed, and presented it to his instructor as a joke commemorating the promotion, which the Captain said he'd proudly hang in his office! Instead of having to pay a dollar fine at the end of his speech, for a bad or unfunny story as some had to, they actually paid Jordan back the dollars he had to put in previously for other fines, because his story was so entertaining.

Jordan's instructor's speech talked about how his previous student had been a ditzy blonde girl, and then after discovering his next student was from Southern California, he thought he'd be in for some hippie surfer dude equally as ditzy as his previous blonde student. Furthermore, Jordan's on-wing instructor was actually switched on him before starting primary late Sunday night, so instead of calling him at 10:00 at night on Sunday to ask and confirm that he was in-fact his on-wing, Jordan decided to text his instructor instead, in what he thought would be a more respectful means of communication because of the late hour. Well at the time he received the text, his instructor was reading his daughter a bed-time story "Are You My Mommy?" when Jordan texted him "Are you my On-Wing?" And while the irony of it was amusing at first, he didn't see it as a necessarily respectful move, as Jordan had intended it to be, and instead thought, who is this punk Cali kid who thinks he can text his superior officer?! This initial communication only furthered his instructor's initial image of this stereotypical casual surfer kid from California!

The whole night was entertaining, and full of old Naval Flight tradition as well as fun new traditions created by and unique to the VT-27 Boomer Squadron. Here are a few pictures from the tie-cutting ceremoney, as well as more pictures that we just received from Jordan's formation flight: