You only have one chance to screw up a good first impression.

Yep, you read that right, you know, it's the part about: "Screw up a good first impression" that makes me use that as a title.. There's a concept for you to think about. I initially wanted to write about: "Don't Screw Up A Good Late" but, even though they are connected, that will have to come a bit later.

The reason I am using this title has to do with a lesson I learned yesterday. Oddly enough, the lesson came with an email from a mentor of mine that taught me the same thing in May of 1970. Here begins the lesson.

When you are a newbee copilot and it's your first day in a combat zone, your senses are on hyper alert. A pilot, with all of the training that focused on  "paying attention to detail", can't help looking at every little detail. The kid with the wrinkled shirt, sloppy hair cut and dirty boots is a long way from the seasoned Aircraft Commander who is clean shaven and standing tall. I found that guy on the first day I arrived in Xuan Loc and before I knew it, I found two or three more.

We copilots hung out together as we were trying to get our feet on the ground and figure out who was who and who wasn't. Not long ago, I wrote about a guy named Ed because he was my first room mate and was a newbee at the same time I was.

Eddie had only been there a short while when I arrived but he already knew who the hitters were and he gave me their names and the reasons he felt they were the guys he liked to fly with, the ones that made him comfortable. That's not to say that we had any slouches in the group because most of us were new anyway and we were a long way from becoming Aircraft Commanders.

Of the several copilot newbees among us, several would go on to become top notch combat aviators in their own right but at that particular time, we were hunting for the right guy to follow cause we didn't know shit about combat ops. We knew how to fly the Huey but all the flight hours we had at that point in time was in A and B models, not the D models that were sitting in the revetments.

Terry Femmer, who is no longer with us, deserves honorable mention here. He was a great Nighthawk Gunship pilot and was influential in teaching me some of my survival skills during day and night combat ops. So was Doc and Cpt Moore but I didn't get to fly many night time missions with either of them. The real deal was found in Craig. There's something that Femmer, Doc and Craig had that was completely different than some of the other pilots you would see from time to time. After that, it didn't take me long to find the older guys and hang out with them.

Even though Eddie flew different missions than I did, he found his group too and we exchanged notes as best we could. The point I wanted to make about first impressions came from Craig 43 years ago but the second "first impression" I had came yesterday and believe it or not, it came from Craig again.   
I'm not going to get into the entirety of his email but I feel strongly enough about the content of it to make a point about it now.

We're a long way from trying to find a seasoned combat pilot to show us the way but in a sense, especially after all the stuff that's gone down since 9/11, there's certainly a scent of war in the air and I discover people every week who are looking for the older guy to help them along the way as they try to figure out what to do about the future.

When I read Craig's email and focused on the things he said and the concerns he had, I realized that he still has that trait of a mentor and I felt quite relieved to realize that there are lots of Veterans out there that are like Craig. He's still leading the way and as I thought about all the young guys that have asked me what they should do to prepare for the future, I get back to WWWD, "What Would Wolman Do".  I often times tell them to call me or come get me and I'll lead them along that path just like Craig led me. Thanks Craig. Great email.