Salute: Real Top Gun leads Eagles in alpha strikes at South Lake

GROVELAND – The Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps of South Lake High School has been making some noise of late.

Taking on a Naval Services (Navy, Marines and Coast Guard) leadership development program that seeks to instill courage, honor and commitment, participants are attacking with vigor a challenging extracurricular syllabus which includes physical fitness, marksmanship, drill, discipline — plus studies in maritime heritage and sea power.

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It doesn't hurt that their fearless leader is a Renaissance man:  plays banjo, captain of the karate team at the U.S. Naval Academy, triathlon competitor, combat veteran, Master's Degree in Operations and Management, and jump wings from Ft. Benning, Georgia.

He also earned his SERE rite of passage (survival, evasion, resistance and escape) roaming the hills and cacti of California's Cleveland National Forest.

Not to mention that Lt. Col. Hal "Gomer" Pylant, 53, USMC (retired), also graduated from Top Gun in 1997 — the year after the Navy's premier winged warriors moved their toughest course from its classic Miramar location to Naval Air Station, Fallon, Nevada.

And in 2001, Pylant was named the best Naval Flight Officer (NFO) in the United States Marine Corps, ever sharpening his career trade in the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet fighter-attack jets.

So, what's a guy like that do in "retired" life? Run for governor in his native Tennessee? Start his own aviation-based think tank? Play golf every day?

Hardly.

"The rest of my days," the old Operation Iraqi Freedom hand says matter-of-factly, "will be spent 'paying forward' all the good fortune I have enjoyed from superior mentors.

"The legacy and impact I strive to make on teenagers today," Pylant figures, "can last decades beyond the end of my working days.

"These terrific South Lake Eagles will be in my shoes in 35-plus years, and I get great satisfaction from being a lasting memory and an active part of their early professional development," he said.

Pylant is a noteworthy link in another generation-spanning chain: his father served in the U.S. Air Force and his uncle made the ultimate sacrifice during the Normandy Invasion (the 78th anniversary of D-Day having been observed just this past week).

Among those "superior mentors" he still holds in highest esteem is a Navy skipper for whom Gomer served as squadron executive officer. Specifically, the fellow Naval Academy grads zoomed and chased and bombed under the banner of "The Gladiators" of VFA-106, based at NAS Oceana, Virginia.

The squadron's war bird roots go back to Guam, circa 1945.

"Captain Sammy 'Pappy' Paparo was easily one of the most influential leaders I came across in my entire career," Pylant said. "Pappy had a no-nonsense, uncompromising excellence about everything he did.

"He led from the front, meant what he said, held his staff accountable, set high goals – and achieved them every time," said Pylant of his CO. "Pappy was more of a Marine than a handful I could name."

Today, it's "Admiral" Paparo – and his headquarters is in Honolulu where he holds down Chester Nimitz's world-changing billet as Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet.

From what Pylant and fellow NJROTC instructor, retired Marine Master Sgt. Brandon Messenger, are observing on their Florida campus, the colonel says "it is no stretch at all to see one of our South Lake Eagles sitting in the Admiral's chair one day."

Pappy himself, reached by the Daily Commercial in Hawaii last week, said "the South Lake NJROTC is blessed to have such an accomplished and high-character leader as Gomer Pylant.

"He was absolutely the best teammate I've ever had," Paparo continued. "Smart, hardworking and intensely loyal. Without his unrelenting support, The Gladiators would never have achieved what we did.

"Ooo-rah, Marine," the four-star concluded in a personal shout-out to Gomer.

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Real Top Gun leads Eagles in alpha strikes at South Lake