31.   He possessed legendary eyesight, and took four seasons off from baseball to fly combat missions in two wars as a Marine Corps fighter pilot.

32.   He has since flown three missions.

33.   He flew combat missions during the Spanish Civil War in support of the rebel forces of Gen. Francisco Franco.

34.   He said pilots routinely tell him that they would rather be flying real missions over Iraq than training runs at their bases back home.

35.   He suggested that if Congress repealed the ban on women flying combat missions the Army might use hundreds of them as helicopter pilots.

36.   He rode along as Royal Air Force bombers flew missions over Italy.

37.   He was a first lieutenant and navigator in the Army Air Force, flying bombing missions in the Pacific.

38.   He said he had flown relief missions to Somalia, Sarajevo, to Kurds in Iraq and for victims of a recent volcanic eruption in the Philippines.

39.   He would later fly six missions in Desert Storm, he said.

40.   Hungary has agreed to allow some NATO aircraft to fly missions from its bases.