{"id":15,"date":"2026-08-31T11:04:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/?p=15"},"modified":"2026-08-31T11:04:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:04:53","slug":"she-was-asleep-in-seat-8a-then-the-captain-asked-for-a-combat-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/?p=15","title":{"rendered":"She Was Asleep in Seat 8A\u2014Then the Captain Asked for a Combat Pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mara Dalton woke before the announcement had even finished, instantly sensing that something aboard the overnight flight to London had changed. At 38, the former Air Force pilot had spent 11 years flying F-16s, completing 147 combat sorties and earning three Distinguished Flying Crosses before leaving military service three years earlier. Now she wanted nothing more dramatic than a quiet week with her sister Sarah and seven-year-old niece Emily. She had finally fallen asleep in seat 8A when a flight attendant hurried down the aisle. \u201cIs anyone here an experienced pilot?\u201d the announcement asked. Mara hesitated, reminding herself that emergencies were no longer her responsibility. Then she raised her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Foneclickstip.com%2F%3Fp%3D3694\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mara Dalton woke before the announcement had even finished, instantly sensing that something aboard the overnight flight to London had changed. At 38, the former [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17,"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/17"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/todayusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}