RAHPE

SERVICE RECORD

Few men have managed to simultaneously embody the finest traditions of the United States Army, the complete disregard for its regulations, and the deeply unfortunate consequences of giving an exceptionally talented man unsupervised access to a fighter aircraft. Randy “RAHPE” Henrion, a career assaulter, Ranger Instructor, and aviator by what can only be described as divine administrative error, spent the better part of his career teaching America’s finest how to become harder, faster, and considerably more unpleasant to kill.

With his eyes on the sunset, RAHPE looked to retire in the mountains of North Georgia with distinction, up until the afternoon an unsecured F/A-18C sitting on the flight line during a local airshow presented what he later described as “an obvious training opportunity.” Witnesses report that he simply climbed aboard, started the aircraft, and proceeded to demonstrate an unsolicited aerial performance that included maneuvers no one had briefed, authorized, or—according to the aircraft’s owner—insured. By the time authorities realized the Hornet was airborne, RAHPE had already embarrassed the pilots who were actually supposed to be flying it. The situation should have ended with a court-martial and a one-way ticket to Leavenworth, but then somebody reviewed the footage. His flying was apparently impressive enough to transform a felony into a personnel problem, and the only punishment that survived the investigation was the loss of his rank. The Department of War would later describe the incident as “an administrative anomaly.” RAHPE described it as “the best airshow anyone got that year.”

The official record remains deliberately vague about what happened next. Unofficially, RAHPE was stripped of everything resembling rank, authority, dignity, or retirement eligibility and began the final chapter of his Army career at a grade that could only reasonably be described as Private Second Class and “we’re still deciding.” It was during this humiliating descent from decorated Ranger Instructor to what witnesses described as “the Army’s most overqualified private” that he was approached by Jarred “ESSP” Taylor with an offer that should never have been made: a place aboard the USS Leviathan and an opportunity to join Carrier Air Wing ZERO as a fighter pilot with VFA-199 “Wet Death.” RAHPE accepted immediately, largely because no one thought to ask whether he was actually qualified to accept.

When sufficiently provoked, RAHPE undergoes what squadron psychologists have reluctantly classified as The Macho Man Event, during which his personality shifts and The Voice emerges as that of the legendary wrestler, usually at a volume completely disproportionate to the situation. Whatever RAHPE was supposed to become after the Army, it clearly wasn’t this. But having climbed from Ranger Instructor to disgraced private to F/A-18 pilot aboard the Leviathan, he has finally discovered that there is, in fact, a top rope above the clouds—and he intends to jump from it at Mach 1.5.

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