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Retrospectively, what scares me now is not where our "skills" took us; but rather where our "luck" brought us back from.

It is reported that Ceaser once said that the best defense is a good offense. I think what he said was mis-translated and that what he actually must have said is that it's hard to beat someone who is cocky and arrogant and thinks he can do anything. He very often will do just that. For more than 20 years I have been telling my kids and my wife that I must be the luckiest guy alive, because I survived Viet Nam.

But the most amazing thing is that as I reminisce and remember my tour --- and remember my peers and my collegues --- I realize I was just an ordinary guy in an extraordinary group.

If someone were to write the definitive book about Army helicopter aircrews, an appropriate title might be "We Were Heroes Once, and Young ..." I never was before (heroic) and never was after my tour. "It was the Best of times, it was the Worst of times ..." The love, the pride, the respect, and the utter faith we had in each other made us Brothers-in-Arms then, and keeps us Brothers-in-Hearts now.

God Bless You All.
God Bless Us All.

Pickett