It used to be that every red-blooded young boy watched Top Gun and dreamed of growing up to be a fighter pilot, though hopefully not one killed during an emergency ejection. Today, the Air Force cannot get enough fighter pilots to fill its fancy planes.

It seems like we've heard every last story remotely connected to the events of 9/11. But I'd never heard this one: the one about the female fighter pilot who came thisclose to a patriotic suicide mission that day.