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Apr. 17—Almost two decades before a Tom Cruise movie helped make the phrase "Top Gun" famous, a Berks County man was among the first Navy pilots schooled in that elite fighter weapons program.

Tom Kopel of Oley Township, a Vietnam veteran of the Air Force and Navy, flew 150 combat missions during the war and made more than 220 aircraft carrier landings following his 1969 training at what would become known as Top Gun school.

Now 81, Kopel and his wife, Pamela, are better known locally for their business The Oley Baker. Since 2000 the couple has teamed up to make artisan breads from their home. Their products are sold in eight stores in Berks and Montgomery counties.

But 50 years after the war ended, Kopel's flying remains a part of Navy history, and not just because he was part of the initial group to receive Top Gun instruction.

Kopel's flights regularly put him in harm's way, and he earned the Navy Commendation Medal for valor in combat during the war, being commended by top Navy leadership for heroic achievement as a jet pilot during a particular attack mission in Southeast Asia.

Amidst a barrage of ground fire during that mission he placed all of his bombs on target, destroying five enemy trucks and causing many enemy casualties, his commendation reads.

"His profound determination in spite of heavy anti-aircraft fire and adverse weather conditions resulted in substantial damage to the enemy's logistic efforts," it reads. "Lt. Kopel's superb airmanship, courage, and devotion to duty reflected great credit upon himself and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."

A Long Island, N.Y., native, Kopel grew up watching Grumman Hellcat fighter planes go by in pieces on heavy trucks en route to the Pacific Theater during World War II, and it left an impression on him.

His family's home was immediately under the approach for the east/west runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport, where in certain weather he could also see the pilots stream unburnt fuel fire behind the wings.

"That was hot stuff for a kid," he said.

Getting his wings

After his family moved to Reading for his dad's job, Kopel graduated from the Central Catholic High School in 1959 and went on to Albright College, where he earned a Bachelor's degree in economics with a minor in history.

With the U.S. having entered the Vietnam War, Kopel knew he was going to be drafted soon after his college graduation. His dad told him that if he enlisted, one of the services might take him as a prospective pilot, which the Air Force did.

When he joined the Air Force in 1965 and entered officer pilot training, he was a rarity in his class, with the other trainees being graduate engineers, and there were other challenges, he said.

"The state of mind they offered is they wanted you to flunk out or cause you to quit, which I thought was strange," he said.

But Kopel withstood that pressure and earned his Air Force pilot wings in 1966.

His missions included flying B-52 bombers loaded with live nuclear weapons, but there came a point where flying those planes no longer felt challenging to him and he was looking for a change.

It was then by chance he saw a watercolor depicting a Navy A-4 Skyhawk coming aboard a carrier.

"That's for me," he told himself.

So Kopel transferred to the Navy and joined its Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor Course — now called Top Gun, which has earned a reputation for producing the best fighter pilots in the world.

Unsure beginning

His first morning at the former Naval Air Station Miramar, the home of the Pacific Fleet fighters, Kopel woke up and saw two F-4 Phantoms taking off from the runway in formation.

"In the night and early morning low coastal clouds and fog, both run up, both roll, both add full power, both go to afterburner, both disappear into the goo," he said. "Hmmm, I thought. I was in over my head."

Then while waiting for the catapult on the aircraft carrier USS Randolph to send his plane into the air for his first landing on the deck at sea, he thought about how his time in the service could have been much less dangerous if he'd not volunteered for Top Gun school.

"It occurred to me that I was nuts," he said.

But Kopel completed that training and began his storied career as a Navy pilot.

More than half of his flying missions involved bombings on the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos, always at risk of being shot by ground fire from North Vietnamese army gunners.

Among the many lessons he learned in the sky was the importance of being ever alert when in a combat setting.

"You've got to be a wild man in that cockpit if you don't want to get shot down," he said. "You've got to know everything that's going on for 360 degrees all the time."

He later served as Navy flight instructor, passing those lessons on to budding pilots, before leaving the military in 1972.

After settling back in Oley, his civilian career included finance jobs with Prudential Securities and Berkshire Capital and owning an antique rug dealership business before is bread-making hobby became his next career.

He and Pamela have two daughters, Genevieve and Ashley, both of whom live in Berks.

Kopel recently had the chance to talk about his life and military service on the popular podcast of Iraq War veteran and retired Navy Seal Jocko Willink, who praised Kopel for his service during the Vietnam War, and for helping change the way Navy pilots fight in the air.

Men like Kopel took incredible risks to get the job done, and laid the foundation for how Navy fighter pilots are trained, said Willink, who was thankful for the opportunity to meet him.

"It was pretty awesome to hear from a dude that in the middle of the Vietnam War volunteered to go fly F-4 Phantoms," he said.