It wasn't at all that the information was irrelevant or that the info was necessarily boring. It was simply that we were talking with Marine officers who were college graduates, cheerful, smiley, humorous, and with a tinge of dangerously brilliant nerdiness. It was very different than the DI side of Parris Island where every muscle in you was on guard not to step out of line. A little gun shy, the pilots and support staff spoke to us about the benefits of being in the Marine Corps, why they came into the Corps, etc.
They allowed us to tour the F-18 hangar where maintenance was being done on the planes. To give you an idea of how generous the Marines were to allow us close-up access, an F18 costs 35 million, whereas the production and purchase of a new F18 costs 800 million. Short and sleek, several F18s were in various states of repair, crewmen working on planes on the other half of the hangar or out on the runway. They had us don a pilot's helmet, climb the B-stand" (aka, "Bravo stand." By the way, none of the pilots or wizzos to whom I spoke knew why it was called a "B-stand"). The pilots were cordial.
Of the things I learned while on the hangar tour, the value pilots place on their wizzos was the most impressive. The wizzo's extra pair of eyes cuts the time of identifying and engaging targets by half. The wizzo essentially spends his time scanning the landscape through amplified video technology, looking for targets who think themselves to be insignificant subjects of interest. While the pilot sees the immediate need before him, the wizzo is watching dozens of incidents of enemy activity on the ground and calling in strikes. As one pilot told me, the wizzo makes the pilot look good. That is why they call wizzos "wizards", too.