** Air Medal with the first through thirty-third oak leaf clusters **

You earned and deserved every damned one of 'em, bud, one lz at a time.

Not that it makes any difference at this point, Dave, but the lifers (we're talking early '69) never got around to giving me even the first AM. Maybe 400-450 hrs in 6 months or so of flying, mostly CA. It's sort of funny today, turns out most of my grunt friends kept meticulous CA logbooks and they've all got AMs. The dopey Huey guy never saw the first one. How absurd is that? Sheesh.

You cannot make this stuff up.

Bob