..and happened to be proximate to a harrier engine that got fired up on a test pad. Noise was so loud I went inside a safety building, got some hearing protection and it still rattled my organs from the inside. There was an old silver hair Marine Officer standing right next to the pad watching the test with both hands on his waist and no hearing protection (looked like Lee Marvin in the Dirty Dozen). After the test shut down I asked someone how the guy could handle it and they said he’d been legally deaf for 10 years from so much time at the MCAS - he had more value in testing operations since he was already deaf so they kept him on longer than a normal retirement target.