Since people were going on about "context"...
Legend retired as a member of one my sister squadrons. Typical modern journalism getting it wrong, he didn't retire active duty, he was a reservist, though he has earned an active duty retirement. Actually had it for decades, which is a point of note in itself, more on that later.
The real story here is the sheer medical luck of being able to keep flying status for 35 years. That doesn't happen in a vacuum, you have to fight, cheat and steal to keep that. I don't mean that as a personal aspersion, but as a point of fact, as I am employed in the same occupation/role as he was. It is simply not a given.
Also remember, at 30 years YAS, you lose all aviation pay. Yep, $0. It's a hint they don't need you in that role, one that of course many of us AFRC/ANG types make a point to actively disregard, with open contempt I might add. At any rate, most people give this up 10-15 years earlier than he did, especially once you realize the significant paycut you take compared to airline flying.
In a way, those of us who hang out in the "stick hog" side of military aviation, something active duty poo poo's anyways (O-5s in line flying billets) are viewed as a special kind of weirdos. Not too many people champing at the bit to bang out 1.3-1.5 at a time for 25 years in a primary trainer. It's a true passion, most Active duty guys are ready to quit over a 3 year tour at a UPT location... try 25 years in the same duty station. Like I said, career outlier is an understatement.
I can confirm if you're gonna pull a stunt like this, the T-6 is the airplane to do it in. My ASDs were significantly higher in that airplane than in the Talon, especially when you add cross countries into the mix. For IFF it's much worse (.8), with worse skeletal outcomes (Defensive BFM in this relic is an all-hat-no-cattle affair, medically speaking). At any rate much easier to do 5,200 in the Texan than the Talon. Still, that's a lot of spinning and pitch and puke, he earned that accolade fair and square. Most people don't envy what he did, when you understand what it entails (primary training).
The beauty of my corner of the DoD is that you can truly pick your own adventure. You can be a 1-star with an otherwise unimpressive resume by following a relatively simple boilerplate recipe, get saluted and pick up a 75 pct pension, or you can just as readily do like this guy did and retire a 50 year old teenager with 5200 hours of upside down loops to music as a terminal O-4/O-5. You can't really exercise that kind of elasticity of outcome in the Active Duty. I got 99 problems with my employer, but the flexibility to pick my own adventure was never one of them. This guy is one illustration of that point. Digressing.
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