Ken, Just before the Gulf War the Navy was pumping out pilots.....
Yeah, I was the beneficiary of that race to refill the over RIFed USN aviation ranks in the late 80s. I was a RIFed P-3 pilot and that race got me an invite to return to TACAIR. (To make a long story short, I was a Scooter driver, had a bad ejection and told I could not fly ejection seat aircraft, transitioned to P-3s, and then got RIFed when the Maritime Patrol mission went away when the Soviet Navy went away. I reminded them of my ejection seat prohibition and they said they had a shiny new airplane called the Hornet that solved my problem and would I like to come back?) I qualed just in time for Desert Shield. Timing is everything.