John C. Stratton is a former American

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

defender and retired

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 ...

officer and fighter pilot. He played one season of

A-League A-League Men, also known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional soccer league in Australia and New Zealand and the highest level of the Australian soccer league system. Established in 2004 as the A-League by the ...

soccer. Stratton also starred in the

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of High-definition video, high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and movie theater, theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (image), aspect ratio (approximately ei ...

film '' Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag''.

Early life

Stratton was born in

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

. He graduated from Horizon High School in

Thornton, Colorado Thornton is a home rule municipality located in Adams and Weld counties, Colorado, United States. The city population was 141,867, all in Adams County, at the 2020 United States census, an increase of 19.44% since the 2010 United States cen ...

. He then attended the

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academies, United States service academy in Air Force Academy, Colorado, Air Force Academy Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs. I ...

, where he played on the men's soccer team from 1993 to 1996.John Stratton: Fighter Pilot
/ref> He was a First Team All American his senior season. Stratton graduated in 1997 with a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

. He spent the 1997 season with the

Colorado Foxes The Colorado Foxes were a professional men's soccer club originally based in Commerce City, Colorado, that played in the American Professional Soccer League (APSL) and USL A-League. Founded in 1990, the club moved to San Diego, California in ...

, an A-League soccer team before attending Air Force flight training. Following his graduation from Air Force flight training in 1999, he embarked on a career as an

F-15 The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is an American twin-engine, all-weather fighter aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). Following reviews of proposals, the United States Air Force (USAF) selected McDonnell Douglas's des ...

pilot. Stratton retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2022 and went into the civilian sector as a Boeing 767 pilot for FedEx.

''Fighter Pilot'' film

Stratton was one of the three stars of the 2004 IMAX film ''Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag''. The film documents Stratton's experience as an F-15 Eagle pilot at Red Flag, a United States Air Force combat training exercise held at

Nellis Air Force Base Nellis Air Force Base ("Nellis" colloquialism, colloq.) is a United States Air Force military installation, installation in southern Nevada. Nellis hosts Aerial warfare, air combat exercises such as Exercise Red Flag and close air support exerc ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

. The film follows Stratton for two weeks at the Red Flag exercise. According to the film's voice-over, many of the training scenarios at Red Flag are more complex and dangerous than actual combat. The film was premiered on 2 December 2004 at the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, ...

."Fighter pilot film about teamwork, thrill of flight"
, caption accompanying United States Air Force photograph (041202-F-3050V-135.jpg) by Master Sergeant James Varhegyi, United States Air Force on-line photo gallery, www.af.mil/photos, United States Air Force, Washington, 3 December 2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stratton, John Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Air Force Falcons men's soccer players American men's soccer players Colorado Foxes players United States Air Force Academy alumni A-League (1995–2004) players Soccer players from Denver Men's association football defenders All-American college men's soccer players United States Air Force colonels Military personnel from Colorado Sportspeople from Thornton, Colorado