Two new articles based on AP reporting paint a profile of Navy Lt. Nathan D. White, a USS Kitty Hawk F/A-18 pilot who was lost over Iraq. Sounds like he was a good guy.
Aviation was Navy Lt. Nathan White's passion. "Regardless of the destination, I feel I am trained and prepared for any mission or contingency," he wrote in an e-mail to his family. "I have to have faith that those at the helm have fully weighed the consequences and have determined that the resulting good will far outweigh the bad."
"He wasn't afraid of following his dream," his sister, Ana Mitchell, said. "Whatever Nathan did, he gave it 300%."
A Navy pilot killed when his fighter jet was apparently shot down by friendly fire over Iraq was a dreamer who constantly sought out challenges, his sister said Tuesday. Lt. Nathan D. White, 30, was killed April 2 when his F/A-18C Hornet was apparently shot down by a U.S. Patriot missile. The military said the incident remains under investigation. "He just had the nicest personality. There wasn't anyone who knew him that didn't like him. He could tell great stories. He was just captivating," said Ana Mitchell, White's oldest sister.
He graduated from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and moved to Mesa, Ariz., to take a management job with a Dillard's department store. After a year in Mesa, White applied to law school and the Naval aviation program, deciding eventually to enter the Navy. "Nathan was a dreamer. The sky was really the limit for the possibilities he had," Mitchell said from her Provo home. "It sounded exciting. It sounded challenging, intense."
Posted by Alan at April 17, 2003 10:11 AM