I'm Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors in Their Own Words. In partnership with the

Honor Project, we've brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs

these stories more than ever. Warriors, in their own words, is our attempt to present an

unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation.

Thank you for listening, and by doing so honoring those who have served.

Today, we'll hear from Lieutenant Commander Mike Smith.

Smith served in the Navy as an F.A. 18 pilot and deployed three times between 2002 and 2014.

He was stationed in Japan, Italy, Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Florida.

Smith was also named Strike Pilot of the Year in 2009.

My name's Mike Smith.

I retired as a commander

from the U.S. Navy Reserve

after about 20.5 years of

active duty service following the Naval Academy.

And then I

left active duty as a lieutenant commander in 2014.

Yeah, the Navy is kind of a choose your own adventure sort of place, right? Which is there's so many

different ways that you can go. And at the Naval Academy, you can be a pilot, you can be a submarine officer,

you can be a Marine. And so for a long time, if you wanted to be a pilot,

it became a pilot. That was pretty much how it went. Like the class of 99, for example, something like

99% of those that put pilots as their first choice, got it. But I was class of 2002. And I was the first

class, I believe, that allowed you to be able to have corrective eye surgery. And so as a result,

...