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Can shape, transform and sometimes save lives.  I recently had a young Navy officer (a former student of mine at VP-30) tell me that a “Sea story” (technically an air story) that I had told to his class, had saved his aircrew’s life not too long ago in the Middle East.  It seems that on a nighttime flight mission near some rugged mountainous terrain his aircraft (he was the pilot in command) was unknowingly being flown toward impact with terra firma when he recalled one of my sea stories.  During Maritime Patrol Aviation (MPA) flight training for P-3 and P-8 officer aircrew in Jacksonville, I sometimes recounted brief (often life and death, some humorous) flying experiences to accentuate a point I was trying to make.  It broke up the lecture’s technical monotony and usually motivated the students to pay closer attention.  The story he was referencing involved my own aircraft’s…