When I was a month away from turning 10, my father, a Marine Corps aviator, died in a plane crash during a routine training flight. Colonel John Ditto was 44 years old and had served for 24 years. He’d served two tours in Vietnam and had had several close calls, but he was such a good pilot that he was the only non-general officer who had, at least up to that point, ever been inducted into the prestigious Early and Pioneer Naval Aviators Association, better known as the Golden Eagles.