Exclusive: USAF PJ Nick Gibson to Summit Mount Everest in 2013

My old pipeline friend Nick Gibson is joining up with the USAF’s Seven Summits team to summit Mount Everest next spring. As soon as I was able to contain my insane jealousy, I thought I’d better get in touch with him to see what it was all about. My fondest memories of Nick, a former collegiate swimmer at the University of Florida, was remembering how he used to kick the shit out of all of us in the pool. Dude would finish a 4000 meter fin swim and I’d be on like lap ten. Bastard. - BK

Nick, it’s great catching up with you. Start off by telling us how you got into the Pararescue career field:

I ended up in Pararescue on a break from college. My father was a flight surgeon who lectured to the PJ’s in the 60’s. He asked me what I wanted to do with my life and I told him I wanted to do something that required extreme training and used my college swimming experience but was about helping people. He told me I should check out the PJs and I brushed it off. Like my old man could know what I wanted to do. Yeah, yeah…maybe he knows a thing or two. The events of 9/11 sealed the deal for me and I enlisted after undergrad and a year and a half of paperwork. I’ve never once regretted it.