Remembering Staff Sergeant Jacob McMillan
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Staff Sergeant Jacob McMillan
“You just cut off our fuel!” Jacob McMillan exclaimed. He stared at me wide-eyed from the right seat of a cramped Cessna 152, the Louisiana marsh stretching endlessly beneath us. For the first time since we’d taken off, my fearless best friend looked genuinely concerned.
Growing up in the heart of Cajun country, Jacob and I lived the kind of childhood that felt too wild and free to ever end. We camped in backyard tents, built forts in the coulees, waged BB gun wars, and cruised the bayous in his dad’s fourteen-foot aluminum boat. We trained in martial arts together—where I earned a black belt—and he dominated the mats as captain of our high school wrestling team. I dreamed of becoming a special agent, and Jacob set his sights on becoming an Army Ranger.
Right after graduation, he enlisted. Basic training came first, then Airborne school followed by Ranger School. He earned the maroon beret and the Ranger tab—the kind of accomplishments that aren’t handed out, only earned.
I went a different direction. I attended the University of Louisiana, studied criminal justice, and worked as a police officer. But aviation had its hooks in me early. Every spare dollar went toward flight lessons, and by the time I turned twenty, I had my pilot’s license.
I couldn’t wait to take Jacob flying. But life had other plans. He was stationed in Vicenza, Italy. Thankfully fate intervened when he had fallen in love with a young lady and they were returning to Louisiana to get married.
Tucker Axum adjusting uniform at Jacob McMillan’s wedding reception
At their reception, somewhere between bites of crawfish étouffée, I announced my wedding gift. “I’m taking you flying.”
Not surprisingly, his mother and brand-new bride were less than thrilled. Jacob, on the other hand, lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. He hugged his mom, kissed his wife of only a few hours, and promised we’d be fine. We rushed to the airport like we were late for recess.
“You just turned twenty-one,” Jacob said, as we sat shoulder-to-shoulder inside the Cessna. “And I’m still twenty. We’re too young to rent a car, but they’ll let you rent an airplane?”
“Crazy, huh?” I replied.
He shook his head, laughing in astonishment. “That’s freakin’ wild!”
I handed him the checklist. “You’re my copilot. Let’s check ’em off one by one.”
He didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the laminated card and started rattling off the tasks with the confidence of someone used to procedure and discipline.
“Release the parking brakes,” he said. “Apply full military power.”
I chuckled. “That’s only about 110 horsepower in this little engine that could.”
We climbed out over Lafayette, the engine droning steadily, the smell of avgas faint in the air. From above, the world we grew up in looked smaller, simpler. The Ragin’ Cajuns stadium. The Cajundome. St. John’s Cathedral. The winding bayous that had once been our playground. We soared over Avery Island, the famous McIlhenny Tabasco plant, unmistakable from our bird’s-eye view.
But Jacob wasn’t impressed. “Do a hammerhead,” he said.
“I’m not familiar with that technique,” I confessed. “None of my instructors have taught me that one.”
He grinned and explained it was an aerobatic maneuver designed to get a bogey off our tail. Using his hand to demonstrate, he showed how the plane aggressively climbs into the sky, then abruptly pivots to point its nose at the earth below.
I didn’t trust myself or the weathered rental plane to withstand that type of aerial stunt. Instead, I decided to give Jake a thrill by performing a 60-degree steep turn that produced g-forces twice his body weight. Even feeling the weight of 370 pounds didn’t faze him! So, I applied full power and raised the nose to perform a climb angle so high the blue horizon disappeared from our view. The flight controls got mushy, and the airplane started buffeting. The plane’s nose dipped and we got that sinking feeling in our gut that you get on a rollercoaster. I glanced over at Jacob and he looked as though he was stifling a yawn. My sidekick was fearless!
“Army chopper pilots would try to scare us and make us airsick,” he said. “They’d fly sideways, backwards… They’d drop the nose and build up airspeed and skim the treetops. If any of us puked, we’d owe them a case of beer.”
“How many cases did you have to pony up?” I asked.
“None,” he boasted with a cool grin.
Of course, I thought.
Only one option remained. Far from the city and over the marshlands, I reached over and put my hand on the red-colored knob. I slowly pulled it all the way out.
“Brother, what are you doing?” he said, looking directly at me with concern.
“You know what that knob is for?” I asked, surprised he was so knowledgeable with aviation systems.
“Yeah! You just cut off our fuel!”
Before I could reply, the engine sputtered like a vintage motorcycle. It coughed and then the propeller stopped cold. My first thought was—at 5,000 feet, I’m not supposed to be able to read the manufacturer’s name on the blade! My second thought was how eerie the cockpit silence was—only the soft rush of wind blew over the wings. Jacob looked at me saucer-eyed and exclaimed, “You got me! You got me! Turn it back on!”
Mission accomplished. I smiled widely and relished in the fact my battle-hardened friend admitted defeat. He was human after all. So, I pushed the mixture knob back in and engaged the ignition starter. It tried to crank, but the little engine couldn’t! I looked back at Jacob and his face conveyed that he was eager to immediately return to normal flying, and quite frankly, so was I.
A barnstormer once told me, “A propeller is just a fan. Turn it off and watch the pilot start sweating.”
He wasn’t wrong. The weather hadn’t changed, but beads of anxious sweat started to dot our foreheads. I cranked the ignition again. The engine again sputtered and the propeller rotated just once. Then sprung to life. The rumble of the engine was as comforting as the blast of cold air from my mom’s Cadillac on a summer afternoon.
I glanced over. Jacob exhaled, then broke into a grin. That was it. That was the moment. The only time I ever truly got him.
What he never knew was that I had positioned us over a familiar airstrip where I had done most of my student piloting. My flight instructor had drilled emergency landings into me until they were instinct. We were never in real danger, but I never told him that. Why would I? Our flight became the one wedding gift he always remembered with amusement.
Jacob McMillan and Tucker Axum on their Alaskan seaplane tour.
Life pulled us in different directions, but never apart. He invited me to Alaska when he was stationed at Fort Richardson. I arranged a seaplane tour for us to see the majestic glaciers of Prince William Sound. He pointed out his townhouse below and some of his favorite hiking trails and fishing spots. He was honored when I asked him to be the best man at my wedding, but he couldn’t. He had answered our country’s call for service in Bosnia and Afghanistan, and now he was being deployed to Iraq. When he dropped me off at the Anchorage airport, I gave him a long, tight hug. “See you when you get back, brother!”
Life in California had settled into a steady rhythm—newly married, holiday plans, and certain there would always be time to catch up with an old friend. Then the phone rang. It was his father. I assumed Mr. Gerald was calling to wish me a Merry Christmas. I was wrong. He called to be the first to tell me the tragic news. My friend since 3rd grade had been killed-in-action when a roadside bomb exploded near his military convoy.
I hooked those stainless steel dog tags to my keyring so Jake would always be close.
I flew back home to attend Jacob’s military funeral and to serve as his eulogist. Of all the stories I shared, the one people remembered the most was that flight. After the service, his mother placed his dog tags in my hand. A simple, devastating gift. Her incredibly thoughtful gesture during her immense grief moved me beyond words. I clipped the stainless steel dog tags to my keyring so Jake would always be close. This year marks the 20th anniversary of his death. Every time I grab my keys—whether I’m heading out the door or up into the sky, I feel their weight and think of him.
We pay homage to our fallen veterans when we keep their memory alive. We tell their stories. We place flags at their graves. And in the case of Jake’s and my alma mater, Lafayette High School, they renamed the annual wrestling tournament the “Jacob McMillan Wrestling Invitational.”
Until I see my buddy again, I like to imagine he’s somewhere above the clouds. He’s earned his wings by now. And he’s finally flying those hammerheads.
- Remembering Staff Sergeant Jacob McMillan - May 18, 2026
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This brought me to tears. His mom and I have been besties since we were in 7th grade. He was a great kid and a wonderful human being.
I miss Jacob as Im sure we all do such a great human , he made me feel like I mattered when he didnt have to I served in the 10th mountain division with him I was his neighbor. Hope his family is doing good