Unmentioned by the author, one consequence of USAF putting enthusiastic guys in the F-4 backseat just out of pilot training with shiny hard-earned 'pilot' wings was that the ones that didn't opt for a second, 'front seat' tour were very often assigned to then ATC as T-38 instructor pilots as a dubious reward for service....
....with little actual handling experience other than to grab the F-4 backseat stick and fly some formation on the way home.
At the time, T-38 heavyweight closed traffic to a single-engine pattern and eventual touch & go immediately after takeoff was part of the student syllabus....both day & night.
At Del Rio, we lost two ex-F-4 backseater T-38 instructors (plus the studs) in final turn accidents, one day & one night. Same occurred at other bases to the point that heavyweight SEs were eventually only done straight-in. Solution maybe not totally fitting the problem.
Navy didn't put pilots in the backseat simply because there was no stick, however in a way a more realistic philosophy. When we'd fly against the F-14s, the RIOs would love to swap with our WSOs to be able to actually grab a stick on the way home.
Mid 60s, out of my pilot training class of about 60 graduates, almost half ended up pipeline in the back of an F-4. The common graduation joke was "What color F-4 did you get?"