A previous post from 9/25 and more Churchill.

If you missed the previous post, you may want to scroll down and read it before you get into this one.

Whether you did or didn't, know that I'm in really good spirits. I had what I consider to be a great appointment with the Neurology Department at the VA hospital in Shreveport Monday morning and I'm feeling really good about it all. There was no pain, no prodding of the skull, no sticking with needles or anything at all that was unpleasant or painful.

I'll confess however, that I didn't sleep well Sunday  night. The fact that some of those visits had been painful for me in the past, might make it easier to understand how I've become somewhat concerned and uneasy about appointments that have proven to be painful. It's like Pavlov's dog.

In any event, everything came out just fine and after a 3 hour long nap, I'm still tired but not to the same point I was this morning. It's 3:30 p.m. now and after two cups of coffee, I'm back on the computer checking out the Fighter Pilot's emails. Those always produce good feelings for me as the members there remind me so much of what it was like when I was in a better environment.

You might think that it's strange for anyone to relate their experiences in Vietnam as "a better environment". Having said that, I guess it's an appropriate time for me to explain that comment and remove any doubt that I've fallen off the earth and consider war time to be better than the times we see now.

In pursuit of that, let me mention how wonderful it was to be in the midst of so many men who shared the same goals that I did and how the brotherhood from that was so great that they even made a movie about it. I think that everybody knows about the Band of Brothers even though most have never experienced it.

I've already written about some of the great pilots I flew with like Jim Rohrer. I tried my best to cover what it was like to sit beside him when he was teaching me how to survive the Hunter Killer missions when I was flying Scouts. He's gone now and I really miss the connection we maintained until his unfortunate death from cancer.

I've also written about one of the greatest aircraft commanders I flew with when I was flying Hueys with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. Craig Wollman was so good at doing that it's almost hard to write about him and the influences he had on me.

Let it suffice to say that whether it was combat operations that went on during the daylight missions we flew or the many hours I spent flying as his co pilot during Nighthawk missions, I consider him to be the father of my Band of Brothers.

Unfortunately, not all the pilots operated at the same level. In the latter part of my tour, we had a couple of pilots who never flew. I don't know how or why that happened, but for whatever reason existing at the time, they didn't fly any combat missions at all.

As I thought about the reality of things such as that and how that strengthened the brotherhood among those of us who did fly, more quotations from Churchill came to mind.

1. "Never worry about action, but only, inaction".
2. "One ought never turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If 
      you do that you will double the danger but if you meet it promptly and without flinching you will
      reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything".

In view of the things I've been writing about lately, I hope that explains that life goes on and just because we aren't taking off to fly another combat mission, we're still in a position to do something beneficial and no matter how hard or difficult it may be, never run away from anything. Not everybody feels the same way I do but in a sense, those of us who don't give up continue to pull pitch and take off on another mission.

Uh oh. Hold that thought a second. I'll go look up some more of Churchill's quotes and see what he has to say about a bad spouse, bad politician......




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