When I think about it I grew up during the "Top Gun" years (graduated High School in 89).

Those days the public at large had no access to the internet, and unbiased(mostly) publications could not be found at the local newsstands. Did not help that I resided in a "backwards" locality.

Janes was available, but the accuracy is questionable. Unless you believe Russia had 1000+ Kg pilots. which would make up for capacity discrepencies, when compaired to other sources.

I also attended "religous" schools. Where the History texts always spoke of through Russian defeats by the Turkish, Japanese, Finns, and how the US had to save them from the Germans.

But when I started looking in the atlas and looking at national boundries through the years, along with mineral locations. I started to question.

Then a trip to the UK, looking through their books, throughly changed everything.

A move to a lerge city enabled through searches in many bookstores, both major chain and independent used.

That allowed me to build a large refrerance collection.

Forward to present, with Amazon, the modern Internet, and widespread publication of Aircraft realted mags (Air Forces Monthly, and Combat Aircraft just to name a few), I get an even larger picture.

As far as the religon, I'm now an Agnostic bordering on Atheist.