More than 29 years had elapsed since my 1969-1970 Viet-Nam combat tour of duty when I received a letter from Charles Harris. He was one of my former flight medics who had won two Silver Stars—America’s third highest award for heroism—in less than 1½ months during that war. Harris provided new information and insight concerning a bizarre helicopter medical evacuation mission that could have claimed the lives of his crew, my crew and those of ten wounded Americans at dawn on May 1, 1970 near the edge of Hiep Duc. This was a notoriously dangerous settlement approximately 36 miles southwest of our unit that was located at Red Beach in Da Nang. Read More...

I was at FOB Delta Iraq in 2008-2009. It was my first deployment. I was sitting in my friends CHU (combat housing unit). I was playing my guitar and he brought over his electric drum set. We started getting pounded with indirect fire. We felt the earth shake from beneath us. We looked right at one another. We both knew what was going on but I still got up and walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder saying “we are getting mortared.” He grabbed his weapon and we ran for the bunker. As we piled into the bunker I remember I was missing an important thing. My weapon. I had left it in my CHU. So since I had my guitar, while we were getting hit. I played Nothing Else Matters by Metallica. Read More...

“The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But Read More...