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Speaker 1: You're listening to Software Radio special operations, military news and
Speaker 1: straight talk with the guys in the community. How long
Speaker 1: we're gonna everyone, Welcome back to Software Radio, Software Radio
Speaker 1: One time, Montargraph. I am your hostess Afternoon, Steve BELSHERI.
Speaker 1: We have a very special guest with us, Colin Cahun.
Speaker 1: He's an author of Former Army Helicopter Pilot. He's the
Speaker 1: author of three books, and we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: his latest book, which is um It's titled Mended Wings
Speaker 1: The Vietnam War Experience through the Eyes of ten American
Speaker 1: Purple Heart Helicopter Pilots. At folks, I'm I'm gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: just preface this right off the bat. This is one
Speaker 1: of those page turners that you can't put down. And
Speaker 1: I was speaking offline would column before we started, and
Speaker 1: I told him I was very disappointed in the book
Speaker 1: that there wasn't a chapter eleven. So with that said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna welcome him too the podcast column. Thanks for
Speaker 1: taking the time with us this afternoon. We really appreciate it. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Steve. It's my honor to be here. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you having me. Oh it's it's our on him,
Speaker 1: trust me. And uh so before we get started in
Speaker 1: the book, tell us a little listeners, a little bit
Speaker 1: about yourself, your background, and then uh, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll get into the book itself. Sure. So I was
Speaker 1: commissioned in the Army of Regular Army commission in nine
Speaker 1: three after I graduated from college at New Mexico State
Speaker 1: University in Las Crises, New Mexico, and um from there.
Speaker 1: They didn't have an aviation branch at the time, so
Speaker 1: I had to get a carrier branch. I went to
Speaker 1: Air Defense Artillery Officer Basic course in Fort Bliss. Then
Speaker 1: I went to flight school at what we refer to
Speaker 1: as Mother Rucker if you're a pilot, Fort Rucker, Alabama.
Speaker 1: Graduated in in eighty four and then I was assigned
Speaker 1: to the seventh Infantry Division at Ford Ord, California. I
Speaker 1: flew in the three oh seventh Attack Helicopter Battalion where
Speaker 1: I was an aero scout platoon leader. So I I
Speaker 1: flew primarily H fifty eight as a scout and then
Speaker 1: towards the end of that assignment, I was assigned to
Speaker 1: a V I p unit where I flew White Top
Speaker 1: Hue's flying uh you know, generals in congressmen around and
Speaker 1: then then I got out. I did a year in
Speaker 1: the Guard while I was in law school, but eventually
Speaker 1: graduated from law school and and went on to have
Speaker 1: a career as a patent lawyer before I retired and
Speaker 1: started writing books. So that's where I am. I'm I'm now,
Speaker 1: I'm now a full time offer. Yeah, you said, mother
Speaker 1: rutger Um. I went to the Warrant Officer candidate course
Speaker 1: down there because that's where UM guys who were going
Speaker 1: to the warrant branch for Special Forces. They sent us
Speaker 1: all down there, and they put us in with all
Speaker 1: the aviation students. So you know, you had a bunch
Speaker 1: of young kids. They were just out of high school,
Speaker 1: high school of fight school guys. And then there was
Speaker 1: half of those Special Forces guys and and one or
Speaker 1: two other ms is um. One guy was like a
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons tech and everyone was leary of him because
Speaker 1: they were wondering if he had brought any with them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was It wasn't a fun time down there in
Speaker 1: Fort Rucker. So you know, the best, I guess, the
Speaker 1: less we say about that the best it is, but yeah,
Speaker 1: all the bad part and didn't have the fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the guys I served with in Special Forces,
Speaker 1: he was going through uh the aviation school while we
Speaker 1: were there. He had left a couple of months ahead,
Speaker 1: so he was already flying when I got there, and uh,
Speaker 1: I got to talk to him every afternoon in the
Speaker 1: child hall and he was very excited and I was
Speaker 1: pretty miserable during that time. So uh but again, so
Speaker 1: you know, we you know, that was the decision we chose,
Speaker 1: so we had to live with it. But hats off
Speaker 1: to the helicopter pilots, That's all I'll say. But getting
Speaker 1: to the book, Um, how did you come about, you know,
Speaker 1: the idea that you were going to write this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So when I was in flight school, back in the
Speaker 1: civilian flight instructors who did most of the primary and
Speaker 1: the basic part of the course. Uh, we're all um
Speaker 1: Vietnam vets, and so I got to know these guys.
Speaker 1: Uh they were you know, I used the turn there
Speaker 1: the coolest cats i'd ever met. I mean, they were
Speaker 1: just absolutely unflappable, very professional. And we used to walk
Speaker 1: out to the flight line and and sometimes you'd see
Speaker 1: an old helicopter sitting out there, and we were up
Speaker 1: flying all the old Huey warbirds from Vietnam, and you
Speaker 1: could you could tell that they had been damaged because
Speaker 1: they would put these little square patches over the bullet holes,
Speaker 1: and the fuselages were just spreckled with these these little patches.
Speaker 1: And you'd some some mornings you'd walk out because you
Speaker 1: never knew what aircraft you'd get, and some instructor would
Speaker 1: look at it and say, oh, you know six four seven, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the aircraft I flew when I was stationed
Speaker 1: outside of Dunag or you know, whatever he was gonna say,
Speaker 1: and I just, you know, at that point, I started thinking,
Speaker 1: somebody needs just to write a story about these guys.
Speaker 1: They've got amazing stories to tell. I then went on
Speaker 1: to Ford Ord and all the senior warrants were all
Speaker 1: Vietnam Vets. All the field grade officers were Vets. These
Speaker 1: are the guy these are my heroes, these are the
Speaker 1: guys I looked up to. I'm sure Steve you had
Speaker 1: a similar experience when you first got in. You had
Speaker 1: a certain generation that were your heroes, and um uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they taught me how to be the best
Speaker 1: army helicopter pilot I could be. They taught me how
Speaker 1: to be the best officer army officer I could be,
Speaker 1: and I just respected him. And I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: do a book about them. And I came up with
Speaker 1: the angle about purple hearts because a friend of mine
Speaker 1: was a Vietnam Betty had a purple heart, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting angle. And I really kind of had
Speaker 1: to step out a genre to do this, Steve, because
Speaker 1: my other two books are completely different. They are fiction,
Speaker 1: you know, the historical fiction, but they're still fiction. But
Speaker 1: I just I thought, if you're going to write this
Speaker 1: book that you wanted to do ever since flight school,
Speaker 1: you need to just do it. Because I wanted to
Speaker 1: honor the Vietnam Vet helicopter pods, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: do it while they're still with us, because we're gonna
Speaker 1: start losing that that generation, and I felt like now
Speaker 1: is the time to do it. It's interesting because, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I entered the military a few years before you in
Speaker 1: Night and like you, uh, the Vietnam Vets, the guys
Speaker 1: who you know, I was going through Special Forces training,
Speaker 1: so those guys, you know, we had all read books
Speaker 1: about the stuff they did, and we looked at them
Speaker 1: like they were on this pedestal and uh yeah, at
Speaker 1: that time, all the senior n c o s and
Speaker 1: officers were all Vietnam vets, and you know that's somebody
Speaker 1: that I totally agree with. We all looked up to.
Speaker 1: I mean, those guys had a ton of experience. And
Speaker 1: it's funny you mentioned the you know, the old war bird,
Speaker 1: said Fort Rutger, because my friend who was in flight
Speaker 1: school was telling me the same thing. He had a
Speaker 1: civilian instructor and said, hey, I flew this baby back
Speaker 1: and now he's like, look at the tail, because the
Speaker 1: tail had a bunch of those little square patches on it,
Speaker 1: and he goes, yeah, we almost got shot down a
Speaker 1: few times. And it's just it's an amazing story. And
Speaker 1: then to read the history of these guys, like I
Speaker 1: said at the outset, when you open this book, you
Speaker 1: immediately get hooked on it and you start turning the pages,
Speaker 1: and you know, you kept saying, man, I hope there's
Speaker 1: another chapter at the end of this one, and I
Speaker 1: hope there's another chapter after that. The stories on these
Speaker 1: guys were incredible. Um, so you know, how did you
Speaker 1: come about I guess narrow ante time to just ten
Speaker 1: of these guys. Yeah, so you know that's a great question,
Speaker 1: because so you're gonna write a book about Vietnam helicopter pilots,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you go about doing that?
Speaker 1: And there is an organization called the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots
Speaker 1: Association vh p A. In fact, I was at at
Speaker 1: their conference a few weeks ago. Great bunch of guys,
Speaker 1: and they have a quarterly or it's actually every two
Speaker 1: month magazine that comes out. It's called the Aviator. And
Speaker 1: so I didn't know what else to do but just
Speaker 1: put an ad in there and just say, hey, did
Speaker 1: did you get a purple heart while flying combat in Vietnam?
Speaker 1: That was going to be the criteria, and if so,
Speaker 1: would you be interested in letting me tell your story?
Speaker 1: And I had about I don't know twenty guys that
Speaker 1: I would say, go to my website. They'd go to
Speaker 1: the website. There was a video of me telling them
Speaker 1: about At the time, I call it the Purple Heart
Speaker 1: Project because I didn't have a name for the book yet,
Speaker 1: and and I'd say fill out this application. And about
Speaker 1: twenty guys filled it out, and then I had some
Speaker 1: follow up interviews, and you know, some guys begged off
Speaker 1: once they kind of heard what we were do doing.
Speaker 1: Some guys just weren't a good fit. And eventually I
Speaker 1: got it down. I figured I needed, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you're always thinking about the end product, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I knew I knew for books really to be legitimate
Speaker 1: need to come in at about six words somewhere in
Speaker 1: that range. And so I thought, well, I think I
Speaker 1: can tell each guy's story and about six to eight
Speaker 1: thousand words. I think I hadn't tried it yet, but
Speaker 1: so that means I need ten guys, and so I
Speaker 1: ended up with the ten guys that are in the book.
Speaker 1: And this is just uh, surreptitious, really, Steve, I'd like
Speaker 1: to say I planned this, but I've got an agent
Speaker 1: who represents this book, and when he was going through
Speaker 1: an earlier draft, he said, you know, calling this has
Speaker 1: got to be in chronological order, and you can use
Speaker 1: this as a tool to tell the story of the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. And so that I started rearranging the chapters.
Speaker 1: I put them in chronological order, and oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I said it was surreptitious. The first guy they're they're
Speaker 1: arranged at the order that they were injured. That's the
Speaker 1: way mended wings is set up. And the first guy
Speaker 1: was injured as you saw in nineteen sixty six as
Speaker 1: the war is just starting to ramp up, and the
Speaker 1: last guy is injured at the end of nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: two when they're just aren't many Americans left except for
Speaker 1: air crews. That's that's about it. And so we've got
Speaker 1: the whole war covered. And that's when we came up
Speaker 1: with the concept, well, well, let's put a little historical
Speaker 1: bridge between each chapter for people that aren't that familiar
Speaker 1: with the Vietnam War, they can kind of get a
Speaker 1: sense for it. And uh, it just it just all
Speaker 1: kind of fell into place. And then, of course we're
Speaker 1: not going to give away the the surprise and the
Speaker 1: last chapter, right, Steve, We're not going to talk about that,
Speaker 1: but there is there is a there is a surprise
Speaker 1: in the last chapter and chapter and again that was
Speaker 1: just serendipitous as well, the way all that sort of
Speaker 1: lined up with my visit to Vietnam and one of
Speaker 1: the battlefields and getting no the families, So the whole
Speaker 1: book just sort of just came together from from my perspective,
Speaker 1: just as as well as I could have hoped. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's funny because I didn't realize it
Speaker 1: until after I had read it that it was chronological,
Speaker 1: because you're kind of taken each chapter as its own
Speaker 1: separate story, and it wasn't until after I had finished
Speaker 1: the book I realized that, Yeah, I didn't know if
Speaker 1: you had, you know, envisioned that. I guess to put it,
Speaker 1: you know, one step at the time. But it started
Speaker 1: off and the book hooks you right away because prood
Speaker 1: Helm is your first story, and his story was really interesting.
Speaker 1: And uh, I don't know. I don't want to give
Speaker 1: too much away because we want our listeners to buy
Speaker 1: the book, but can you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: meeting these guys and talking to them about their story,
Speaker 1: especially him to start off with? Yeah, and in fact,
Speaker 1: let's let's do this, Steve. I'll give a little taste
Speaker 1: of prw it just so that folks can get an
Speaker 1: idea of what mended wings, how it's structured. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know, we start each chapter with them, and I
Speaker 1: love the way you put it. When we were offline
Speaker 1: heading towards their penultimate uh you know, their penultimate doom,
Speaker 1: I guess, and they're they're in the aircraft headed towards
Speaker 1: getting injured. And that's so our prew at Helm is
Speaker 1: in his huey C model gun ship and they're escorting
Speaker 1: a bunch of lift ships and they're headed towards an
Speaker 1: insertion because there's a Special Forces unit that's about to
Speaker 1: get overrun, and so they're sending in the grunts to
Speaker 1: save the day. And uh. As that he they fly
Speaker 1: into what what I would describe really as an anti
Speaker 1: aircraft ambush, and their Hue model uh C model hue
Speaker 1: is flies through the kill zone, comes out the other end.
Speaker 1: It is smoking badly. It's really badly shot up. And
Speaker 1: I think you and I would both agree these guys
Speaker 1: had every right to just head for the head for
Speaker 1: home at that point. But as I'm sure you've sing
Speaker 1: over and over again in the US military, they felt
Speaker 1: like they had a job to do, and that was
Speaker 1: protect them in on the ground, and so they turned
Speaker 1: back around and they headed back towards the kill zone.
Speaker 1: And as they're headed that direction, the aircraft in front
Speaker 1: of them blows up in a ball of fire. And
Speaker 1: so that's where we stop. And then we go back
Speaker 1: and we talk about his childhood and growing up in Colorado,
Speaker 1: and again I'm not going to get into a lot
Speaker 1: of details, but it has a very interesting childhood two
Speaker 1: sort of typical of that generation. We take him all
Speaker 1: the way through flight school, some fun stuff he did
Speaker 1: in Korea, all the way back through Vietnam, and then
Speaker 1: we keep working forward after he's been and the story
Speaker 1: of him what happens after he's shot down. It truly
Speaker 1: is a phenomenal and and a and a very surreal
Speaker 1: rescue and then how he overcomes his injuries. He's an
Speaker 1: amazing guy, let an amazing life. And that's where I
Speaker 1: want to leave each reader at the end of each chapter,
Speaker 1: is you get to take all the way up to us.
Speaker 1: He's retired today in Montana. You know, you just go
Speaker 1: all the way through his whole life story. But but
Speaker 1: to your original question, what was it like working with
Speaker 1: these guys this um? I think a couple of points.
Speaker 1: One is I think because I was a helicopter pilot,
Speaker 1: it gave me the ability to talk their language, just
Speaker 1: like I'm sure when you interview special Forces guys. Even
Speaker 1: if you're not in their generation. I think they feel
Speaker 1: like they can tell they can speak a certain way
Speaker 1: to you and you'll get it. Uh. And so that
Speaker 1: was sort of a starting point. The other thing is,
Speaker 1: and this won't surprise you, because I think we're about
Speaker 1: the same h D but um our generation, and really
Speaker 1: even more so their generation that's a phone generation, right.
Speaker 1: They they like to communicate by phone. They're not really
Speaker 1: comfortable with video. And so I would just start off
Speaker 1: with after we did the initial interviews, I had I
Speaker 1: insisted to all these guys send me pictures because there's
Speaker 1: pictures in the book. And the only way I could
Speaker 1: average to get those pictures to say, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to start your interview until I get your pictures. And
Speaker 1: once I got somebody's pictures, I put them in slot
Speaker 1: for doing an interview because that's hard for those guys
Speaker 1: because a lot of those guys, these pictures were slides
Speaker 1: that they people forget that, you know, those slides that
Speaker 1: you put in the projector, and that's how you did
Speaker 1: a lot of those pictures. And and a lot of
Speaker 1: them had had sort of thrown out their Vietnam stuff,
Speaker 1: or their parents had or whatever. So eventually I get
Speaker 1: their picture. I'd set up some phone interviews and then
Speaker 1: I would do at least three and sometimes four phone
Speaker 1: interviews with each guy. Each interview lasted between two and
Speaker 1: three hours, so you can do the math between six
Speaker 1: and twelve hours really of interviews for each guy really
Speaker 1: got to know him. And then if I could, I
Speaker 1: would talk to other pilots that they knew. I talked
Speaker 1: to family members, I did research, you know, I went
Speaker 1: to Vietnam, visited places, got as much information as I could,
Speaker 1: and then Um, when the chapter was done in draft form,
Speaker 1: I would send it to him and say what do
Speaker 1: you think? And it was interesting because a lot of
Speaker 1: these mended wing vets UH wouldn't get back to me
Speaker 1: for four to six weeks sometimes, and they eventually they
Speaker 1: would call and they'd say something a type of conversation
Speaker 1: would say, you know, Colin, I'm sorry I didn't get
Speaker 1: back to you sooner. I want you to know that
Speaker 1: the good news is, you really nailed the chapter. I
Speaker 1: think you did an excellent job in telling my story
Speaker 1: and representing who I am. Um. The bad news is,
Speaker 1: when I read it, it was like ripping a scab
Speaker 1: off and it's just taken me a while to get
Speaker 1: my head around, um, these facts, because quite frankly, I've
Speaker 1: never seen it laid out like this. And then they
Speaker 1: proceed to tell me that, you know, there are some
Speaker 1: things in here that I haven't even told my wife,
Speaker 1: and uh so you know, I'm just struggling with we
Speaker 1: tell the world, and then we'd have a discussion about well,
Speaker 1: you know, first of all, you need to tell your wife,
Speaker 1: you know, I have her read the chapter. I want
Speaker 1: her looped into this process. But secondly, what you please
Speaker 1: think about the fact that we are telling a story
Speaker 1: in this book Mended Wings about your generation of pilots.
Speaker 1: That's really the purpose of the book. And I would
Speaker 1: like people to understand what you guys went through. And
Speaker 1: I know this is painful. I know it's you. But
Speaker 1: people aren't going to understand unless these stories come out.
Speaker 1: So let's consider that. And usually we we'd leave it in,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd figure out how to leave those painful
Speaker 1: things in. That's that's very interesting because you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, reading through the book, each each person had
Speaker 1: their own story. They're all very different. I really like
Speaker 1: the other one about the uh the crew chiefs premonition.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a really good chapter. I didn't
Speaker 1: know where they were going with that and or where
Speaker 1: you were going with that and how it was gonna
Speaker 1: end up. I thought that was a really interesting, uh story.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's each guy. I thought it was
Speaker 1: really pretty different. But they all had that love of aviation,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's what tied all the book together,
Speaker 1: obviously being helicopter pilots. But you know, the as we
Speaker 1: set offline, Um, it starts off, you know, right as
Speaker 1: the war is ramping up, and then through the heavy
Speaker 1: part of the fighting and the you know, probably sixty
Speaker 1: seven to sixty nine, and then things start to you know, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess Vietnamization took place, and the US is gradually
Speaker 1: pulling out, and then you know, the final chapters of
Speaker 1: the book about the only guys in combat were a
Speaker 1: handful maybe of Special Forces guys and helicopter pilots. That
Speaker 1: was it, And the feeling amongst those guys was really different,
Speaker 1: wasn't at that point? Yeah, And I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the things you get to see through this book
Speaker 1: is the progression of the war and how certainly air crews, uh,
Speaker 1: their their roles in the war changed their attitudes changed,
Speaker 1: you know, the race relations start to ramp up. Towards
Speaker 1: the end, they get worse. Uh, and the way they
Speaker 1: fought the battles changed. We went from a and and
Speaker 1: for you know, for our vets out there, these terms
Speaker 1: are gonna make sense. But we went from a low
Speaker 1: intensity conflict where we're really doing kind of a guerrilla
Speaker 1: war two at the end of medium intensity conflict where
Speaker 1: we're fighting conventional forces and and they've got very sophisticated weapons.
Speaker 1: And you're right. In nineteen seventy two, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about he's our last veteran is Michael Byrne,
Speaker 1: who I figured he might he might have a soft
Speaker 1: spot for him, just because his his earlier Special Forces tour.
Speaker 1: You know, he did a he did a really a
Speaker 1: two and a half and Special Forces before they'd even
Speaker 1: let him let him get into flight school. I thought
Speaker 1: that was kind of a nasty rick to tell him
Speaker 1: you had to to to stay on to get into
Speaker 1: flight school. But anyway, he was willing to do it.
Speaker 1: And for him, uh to like all the guys in
Speaker 1: seventy two when they're flying around, if they got shot down. Uh,
Speaker 1: there there there's a there's a chase HUEI behind you,
Speaker 1: a command command and control hue behind you. But if
Speaker 1: that aircraft can't get to your your toast, you're either
Speaker 1: gonna get killed or captured because they're just there's no
Speaker 1: there's no friendly there's no Americans, um that they're going
Speaker 1: to be able to send to rescue you at that point.
Speaker 1: So it was a very very different war. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know it's like for the helicopter pilots, you know,
Speaker 1: the in the in the past, they always knew there
Speaker 1: was large American units nearby where if they went down,
Speaker 1: guys are gonna come and rescue him. They didn't have
Speaker 1: that warm and fuzzy feeling with the South Vietnamese military,
Speaker 1: which you can probably draw a lot of comparisons to
Speaker 1: what's just transpired, you know, recent lee in Afghanistan, where
Speaker 1: a lot of the military didn't have a high I
Speaker 1: guess good will toward well, not a good will, but
Speaker 1: confidence in our allies. Yeah. Well, and you I know,
Speaker 1: you and I could probably do a whole show on
Speaker 1: on parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan, and that's all unfortunate,
Speaker 1: but uh, but I did want to you did uh
Speaker 1: talk about one point that it may have struck you
Speaker 1: when you read it, but it actually struck me when
Speaker 1: I wrote it. When I set out to right Minded Wings, Uh, Steve.
Speaker 1: For some reason, I had in my head that all
Speaker 1: these guys were gonna be kind of the same. Their
Speaker 1: stories would be roughly the same, and I was thinking
Speaker 1: it was going to be a task to be able
Speaker 1: to distinguish and make ten different interesting chapters. I don't
Speaker 1: know why I had that thought, because I couldn't have
Speaker 1: been more wrong. Um that they do have. I will
Speaker 1: say they all have some sort of unifying characteristics. One
Speaker 1: is they all love fast cars. I mean, for some reason,
Speaker 1: you know, they were all driving Corvettes and Mustangs, and
Speaker 1: that just seemed to fit their character. Uh, most of them,
Speaker 1: not all of them, but most of them really didn't
Speaker 1: care for academics. They none of them were really you know,
Speaker 1: excelled from a scholarship standpoint. It wasn't because they weren't smart.
Speaker 1: They were all smart guys. They just they had other pride.
Speaker 1: You know, they were more interested in in cars and
Speaker 1: girls and stuff like that, and they just they just
Speaker 1: didn't do that. Um. And outside of that, they they
Speaker 1: are all extremely different. I mean, each their personalities, their experiences.
Speaker 1: We've got all the different kind of aircraft in here
Speaker 1: and minded wings. Uh. You know, we've got guys flying loaches,
Speaker 1: flying cobras, flying Quie's, doing all kinds of different jobs
Speaker 1: in the cab or lift pilots or or that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and their injuries are all completely different. As
Speaker 1: you noticed. Uh, some of these guys were hurt very badly.
Speaker 1: You know. Our our chapter two at Mike bond Guard,
Speaker 1: who by the way, I got to meet in person
Speaker 1: three weeks ago down at v h p A. He's
Speaker 1: eighty years old and he's still he goes. He walked
Speaker 1: seven to eight miles a day, sharp, sharp as attack,
Speaker 1: even though when he was injured he had a brain injury.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, they removed part of his occipital load
Speaker 1: and um he's his story, of course, is very unique
Speaker 1: because he had some out of body experiences, uh during
Speaker 1: the whole thing. So it it It turned out to
Speaker 1: be really a very amazing experience for me writing the book,
Speaker 1: and I'm delighted that I was able to put this
Speaker 1: book together, Mended Wings as a tribute to the guys that,
Speaker 1: as I said at the beginning of the show, we're
Speaker 1: really kind of my heroes, and I'm glad that I
Speaker 1: was able to do this. Yeah. Another interesting character in
Speaker 1: the book was as you put a broke glide, Uh,
Speaker 1: he was the only uh well they they they treated
Speaker 1: him like an African American, but he really wasn't. He
Speaker 1: was like Latin American. But the military treated him as
Speaker 1: an African American and he had a whole different, um,
Speaker 1: I guess, experience because he was dealing with other things
Speaker 1: besides you know, being a helicopter father in Vietnam. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well five Ramerios grew up as basically basically a Puerto
Speaker 1: Rican from the Bronx and um so, like you said,
Speaker 1: when when he gets into the army, he's basically told
Speaker 1: in some some words that uh that I did use
Speaker 1: in the book because he insisted, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to use on your podcast. But they pretty much just
Speaker 1: told him you you're hey, you're a You're a black guy,
Speaker 1: whether you like it or not. And so he sort
Speaker 1: of adopted that, and so he became a black guy.
Speaker 1: And as as we relate in the book, there there
Speaker 1: weren't a lot of there weren't a lot of blacks
Speaker 1: in the flight program for for whatever reasons at the time,
Speaker 1: and so that put him in a kind of a
Speaker 1: unique situation. And and we we talked about the things
Speaker 1: that he experienced, and um, he's he's a very interesting
Speaker 1: character as well. I just I love him to death.
Speaker 1: And all these all the black guys that that that
Speaker 1: we talked about, including bro Clyde or Clyder Mayor, they
Speaker 1: all served with tremendous pride for the United States. I
Speaker 1: mean they I think their attitude was, uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: might be I might be black, I may be different,
Speaker 1: you might treat me a little bit differently, But when
Speaker 1: the chips are down, by God, it doesn't matter who
Speaker 1: you are, who I am, I'm there. We're all on
Speaker 1: the same team. And I think that that was true
Speaker 1: by and large in the aviation units. I don't really
Speaker 1: have a much experience outside of that, but I think
Speaker 1: they maintained their their racial cohesion a lot more than
Speaker 1: some of the ground units, where some of the tensions
Speaker 1: got a little bit higher towards the end. That's that's
Speaker 1: my understanding. Again, I don't have a lot of experience
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, you know, and uh, in dealing with
Speaker 1: these guys that you're interviewing them, obviously many years after
Speaker 1: the fact, but they all seem through their words that
Speaker 1: they're all pretty humble guys. Yes, and this is and
Speaker 1: I've been asked this before about the difference between Vietnam
Speaker 1: vets and say, the previous generation. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting distinction to make because I know,
Speaker 1: just from social settings, primarily a lot of World War
Speaker 1: Two vets, and they rightfully are very proud of what
Speaker 1: they did. Uh. They will tell you about the things
Speaker 1: they went through. Um. You know, it's maybe not a
Speaker 1: marine who was on guadal Canal or something, but by
Speaker 1: and large, these guys will will tell you about their
Speaker 1: military experiences. And to this day, those that are still
Speaker 1: with us are are proud about it, and rightfully so.
Speaker 1: And they came back from overseas with a swagger to them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think that's all good, and that's right. And
Speaker 1: they may be called the Greatest generation, but I liked it. Well.
Speaker 1: My phrase for the Vietnam generation is the forgotten generation,
Speaker 1: because they came home to a totally different experience. And
Speaker 1: as we mentioned in um Eddie Hester's chapter, when he
Speaker 1: comes back from Vietnam, Uh, he's seen some terrible things
Speaker 1: and we won't go into those details. But he's walking
Speaker 1: through L A X and a guy walks up and
Speaker 1: spits on him. And I don't think that was a
Speaker 1: unique experience. And so as a result our Vietnam vets
Speaker 1: they are a much more humble group. And I think
Speaker 1: that for years and years and years, not only did
Speaker 1: they feel like that, they they they weren't welcome to
Speaker 1: talk about their experiences. They felt like, if in to
Speaker 1: anybody but maybe their deepest, darkest, you know, confidence, they
Speaker 1: would get abused for bringing up their Vietnam experiences. And
Speaker 1: so they I think they hit them away, they tucked
Speaker 1: them away. And it's only now that you know within
Speaker 1: I don't know, what would you say, Steve, Maybe the
Speaker 1: last ten years that we finally accepted them, we're finally
Speaker 1: starting to say welcome home. We're finally starting to say
Speaker 1: thank you for your service, and we're saying we don't
Speaker 1: blame you, no matter how we felt about the war, Uh,
Speaker 1: we don't blame you. You You did your you did your
Speaker 1: service to your country. And that's another thing that that
Speaker 1: I wanted to accomplish when I set out righting mended Wings,
Speaker 1: was this is really my um my homage to to
Speaker 1: these guys, to this generation of pilots. It's a way
Speaker 1: for for me to introduce them to to people who
Speaker 1: didn't understand what they went through. And that was one
Speaker 1: of the things I set out to do, so that
Speaker 1: so that everybody can start to have a better appreciation
Speaker 1: of just what they went through, what they sacrificed, what
Speaker 1: their families sacrificed, because there's some of that in the
Speaker 1: book as well. And um, so that we can turn
Speaker 1: to a Vietnam vett and and tell that vet, welcome home,
Speaker 1: good job, you know, thank you for your service. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny you mentioned that because I you know, when
Speaker 1: I was living up north, I belonged to a local
Speaker 1: Veterans council and we had the VFW, the American Legion
Speaker 1: guys all tied in together. And one of my friends
Speaker 1: in that was a member of the hundred first and
Speaker 1: hundred seventy Airborne and did a couple of tours in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: and he talked about when he came home from his
Speaker 1: last tour, um they told him when they were going
Speaker 1: in l A not to wear their uniforms, and he
Speaker 1: was like, the hell with that. Excuse my language, but
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm gonna wear my uniform. I'm a paratrooper,
Speaker 1: and he said he got spit on in l a
Speaker 1: x so. Um, you know, and when he got home
Speaker 1: to our little town in Massachusetts, you know that they
Speaker 1: told him, hey, to make sure you take off a uniform.
Speaker 1: Even around here, you know, even though it's your back home,
Speaker 1: in your hometown. You know, people are very upset with
Speaker 1: the way the war is going. In they ended up
Speaker 1: blaming the guys who had no blame in that they
Speaker 1: weren't making any of the you know, the decisions to
Speaker 1: get us in or out of Vietnam. They just answered
Speaker 1: their country's call. And it's it's interesting because the Vietnam vets,
Speaker 1: you know, they had they never got that welcome home parade.
Speaker 1: And to get back to your earlier point, it's probably
Speaker 1: what just in the past five years that that's kind
Speaker 1: of changed. Yeah, it's been very slow to change, for sure,
Speaker 1: because even when I know, when when you and I
Speaker 1: were in the military in the eighties, I still I
Speaker 1: still felt like there was some animosity out there towards
Speaker 1: people in in uniforms, certainly in per certain parts of
Speaker 1: the country. Um, you know, when we were I went
Speaker 1: through r OTC before I did my you know, the
Speaker 1: big Green machine actual training, and we were discouraged from
Speaker 1: wearing our uniforms off off campus. And then when I
Speaker 1: was at Ford or California. I mean this is in
Speaker 1: the mid eighties. Uh, you were discouraged from wearing your
Speaker 1: uniform off base because people didn't appreciate the military and
Speaker 1: you're likely to get some attention drawn to you that
Speaker 1: that you didn't want. And it's not just the you
Speaker 1: mentioned your guy wearing a uniform through l A X.
Speaker 1: Back then, Uh, there was a very easy way to
Speaker 1: tell who was on one Saturday argument and who was
Speaker 1: on the other if you were a man, and that
Speaker 1: is that if you in the military or recently in
Speaker 1: the military, your hair was cut very short, and everyone
Speaker 1: else made a point to where they're very hairy, their
Speaker 1: hair very long, and so it was very easy to spot, uh,
Speaker 1: vets or soldiers whether they're in uniform or not. That
Speaker 1: was kind of the purpose because they knew that you
Speaker 1: had to keep your hair short if you're in the military.
Speaker 1: And so if you if you didn't want to be
Speaker 1: thought of as being in the military, you you grew
Speaker 1: your hair out long and that's what happened to Eddie
Speaker 1: Hester when he walked through the airport in l a X.
Speaker 1: He was not in uniform. It'says he had short hair,
Speaker 1: and so they made that assumption. But and speaking of Eddie, Steve,
Speaker 1: I'm just I've kind of figured, you know, when you
Speaker 1: mentioned that you were in the UH the walk training
Speaker 1: at Fort Rucker, Alabama. You know, Eddie's the one who
Speaker 1: who had the story about the candidate Frog. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure you probably looked at that story and thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I completely get that. I completely understand how all
Speaker 1: that happened. I'm just guessing I could be yes, I
Speaker 1: could tell you, well, I went through uh Warrnt Officer
Speaker 1: of Canada training with one of my best friends from
Speaker 1: Special Forces, and this guy, his name was Wade. He
Speaker 1: was a total character and he took great delight and
Speaker 1: pushing back against attack officers. And like in your book,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stories about the attack officers and
Speaker 1: how nasty they are, in which they are. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess that's part of the deal with you know,
Speaker 1: you're getting these kids straight in from high school that
Speaker 1: that's probably needed. With a bunch of ten twelve year vets,
Speaker 1: with in Special Forces. You know, we don't want to
Speaker 1: hear that. So my buddy Wade was always pushing back,
Speaker 1: and him and this other SF guy named Brian, they
Speaker 1: decided when we got put on punishment because we weren't
Speaker 1: scared enough of the tack officers, so they said, you
Speaker 1: have to clean all the tackle officers, you know u faces.
Speaker 1: So Brian went down to the p X and you
Speaker 1: remember those old Kodak flashbulbs, those uh little square tubes
Speaker 1: you put on the camera and take a picture. So
Speaker 1: Brian was he was he was a demolitions expert. So
Speaker 1: he wired all the tax officers desk draws with these
Speaker 1: little flash cubes where when they opened it, it would
Speaker 1: just pop the flash and I mean, nothing was gonna
Speaker 1: happen to him, but it would just startled that. So
Speaker 1: he wired all their desks. So the next morning, you know,
Speaker 1: they come in about four o'clock in the morning, because
Speaker 1: they would get us up about four or fifteen, we're
Speaker 1: already all dressed. We went to the empty building next
Speaker 1: to us. It was straight across from the tack officers,
Speaker 1: so we're all gotta faces planted there and were watching
Speaker 1: them and they all command their shooting a breeze. And
Speaker 1: then the one guy sits at his desk and he
Speaker 1: opens it and the thing pops and you see this
Speaker 1: flash and he jumped out of his desk and you
Speaker 1: could hear him custom so then you know he he's
Speaker 1: like he pulls the next door open and it goes off.
Speaker 1: And then they were all sitting there they were all
Speaker 1: laughing about it. Where we were shocked. We thought they'd
Speaker 1: be angry. They were all laughing and then they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a desk and we're watching him. They're open it
Speaker 1: and he's something flashes. And then one of the last
Speaker 1: desk they had a fake rats trap with a big
Speaker 1: rat in and because that was the guy that everyone
Speaker 1: hated the most, and they were all up a rolling
Speaker 1: on the floor. So we you know, we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: it comes formation time for PT. We all walked outside
Speaker 1: and then they just sat there for like five minutes,
Speaker 1: not saying a word and then just staring at all
Speaker 1: of us because we always in the same spot in
Speaker 1: the formation. No, they never star did a word about it,
Speaker 1: like you know, but they just sit there star staring
Speaker 1: at us. And then as we were going to PT,
Speaker 1: one of the tack officers. I was one of the
Speaker 1: road guards. He he comes running up beside me and
Speaker 1: he said, you'll think you're really fan smart, don't you.
Speaker 1: It's like, sir, he goes, you know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: and he goes, don't worry, we got something planned for
Speaker 1: you guys. When we came back, they had filled up
Speaker 1: the drainage ditches with sandbags and they filled it up
Speaker 1: with muddy water and they made us all jump in.
Speaker 1: So like the kids were all worried that it you know,
Speaker 1: it's all muddy water. We're like just dive in. So
Speaker 1: as we're diving in, we're splashing water all over them.
Speaker 1: And they knew they didn't get no traction out of that,
Speaker 1: so they let us go to breakfast. But yeah, every
Speaker 1: day it was something with them, and you know, whether
Speaker 1: we didn't have a pet frog, but it was like
Speaker 1: every day it was something. And uh yeah when I
Speaker 1: when I read that chapter, I got a big chuckle
Speaker 1: out of it because I think that my friend Wade
Speaker 1: every day did something and uh, we were always walking.
Speaker 1: Uh they had punishment and walks. It that we have
Speaker 1: to put your fresh uniform on it and march around
Speaker 1: the compound. In the Square something. I forget what they
Speaker 1: called that, but yeah, yeah, we did lots of hours
Speaker 1: of that. But so, UM, is there any thought of
Speaker 1: maybe expanding to a second book with some of the
Speaker 1: other guys that you interviewed? Um, you know, I that's
Speaker 1: a good question. I don't know, Steve. I, like I said,
Speaker 1: I had to break genre to kind of write this book.
Speaker 1: And so and this one is doing very well. Minded
Speaker 1: Wings is selling well. It's um. One of the By
Speaker 1: the way, I think that one of the highest compliments
Speaker 1: that that I received on this book is when the
Speaker 1: guys who flew aircraft in Vietnam will read it and
Speaker 1: they'll they'll email me or they'll call me whatever, and
Speaker 1: they and they say, Colin, I don't know how you
Speaker 1: did this because you weren't there, but this is the
Speaker 1: most accurate portrayal I've ever read of flying helicopters in
Speaker 1: Vietnam when I read Minded Wings, And that is extremely
Speaker 1: high praise. So I I'm very pleased with the way
Speaker 1: this book came out. Where do I where do I
Speaker 1: go from here? I'm not sure because I do have
Speaker 1: my first two books were intended as a trilogy. I
Speaker 1: need to go back and finish those and then do
Speaker 1: I come back with another genre similar to this. I'm
Speaker 1: still trying to figure that out. So if you've got
Speaker 1: some good ideas, Steve, just just send me, send me
Speaker 1: any email. But um, but I haven't quite resolved that
Speaker 1: that particular issue yet. Yeah. It's funny because, um, recently
Speaker 1: we did an interview with an author that has always written, um,
Speaker 1: like historical pieces like like yours is, and then he
Speaker 1: had just ventured to his first uh novel where he's
Speaker 1: writing fiction. It was historical fiction, and I asked him
Speaker 1: about it and he said it was really different. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, going from one genre to the next. Did
Speaker 1: you find that uh the same? Obviously it was opposite
Speaker 1: for you. You had written historical fiction and now you're
Speaker 1: going into telling a true story. Did you find that
Speaker 1: tough as well? Yes, yeah I did. It is a
Speaker 1: tremendous change. The first two books, the first book is
Speaker 1: called The Man with the Black Box and the second
Speaker 1: one is called Charlie Calling, and they are historical fiction,
Speaker 1: but their mystery thrillers. So the kind of a short
Speaker 1: way of describing them as is because there's some some
Speaker 1: supernatural stuff in it, it's kind of like Sherlock Holmes
Speaker 1: Chasing Dracula or something. And the thing about it's the
Speaker 1: historical fiction side I really enjoy because I'm a history
Speaker 1: uh buff, you know, I guess, I guess I'm an
Speaker 1: amateur historian, and so there's a lot of research involved
Speaker 1: with that. But when you write a novel, you're just
Speaker 1: taking it up. You know, it's it's uh, nobody can
Speaker 1: tell you what the characters are supposed to be like,
Speaker 1: or what they say or other than you know there
Speaker 1: you unless they're a historical figure like I have Teddy
Speaker 1: Roosevelt in both books, and some of the you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Sir Gray and Lord Lansdown and some of the British guys.
Speaker 1: But uh, for me, honestly, Steve, writing fiction, what I
Speaker 1: found was easier. It was a much more stream of
Speaker 1: consciousness when you're writing a novel, and when you write nonfiction,
Speaker 1: you got to get it right, and so there's there's
Speaker 1: a ton of research that goes into it. I knew
Speaker 1: that there was gonna be a lot of helicopter pilots
Speaker 1: who flew in Vietnam that we're reading this book, and
Speaker 1: that I had to make sure it was so accurate
Speaker 1: that they couldn't find fault with it. You know that
Speaker 1: they had to read it and say, yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: what happened. That's that's what you got now. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: as I point out, if if you were to go
Speaker 1: to uh, if you were to witness a car wrect today,
Speaker 1: if you have ten witnesses, you get ten different stories.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to write about events that happened more
Speaker 1: than fifty years ago, and at some point you just
Speaker 1: kind of have to do the best you can and
Speaker 1: and hope that you got the most accurate story you could.
Speaker 1: But it was I found it to be a lot
Speaker 1: more work than I thought it was gonna be. It
Speaker 1: took me two years to write the book, and uh
Speaker 1: that was pretty much, you know, working on an almost
Speaker 1: full time just to get to get it accurate. I guess. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was very different. Yeah, that that was answered. My
Speaker 1: next question. I was going to ask you how long
Speaker 1: the project took from start to finish, because obviously you
Speaker 1: have vets that are living in different parts of the country.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you actually went and visited with
Speaker 1: them or just talked telephonically or actually met them in person,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure it was. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: most of them, Yeah, most of them were over the phone.
Speaker 1: I did. I did. There is one vet in Dallas,
Speaker 1: my my chapter three vet, Chris Kilgore, who actually Chris
Speaker 1: you asked earlier about sort of the inspiration for the book.
Speaker 1: He's the guy that uh caused me to put the
Speaker 1: purple heart angle into Mended Wings because because Chris was
Speaker 1: a purple heart vet and I and I knew him
Speaker 1: very well and I highly respected him, and so that
Speaker 1: was sort of my um the inspiration to go that
Speaker 1: that way. And I actually interviewed Chris directly, and then
Speaker 1: Chris later sort of became a technical adviser on the
Speaker 1: book for me because I wanted to have at least
Speaker 1: one other Vietnam VET other than the guy that I
Speaker 1: was writing the chapter on, to to sort of vet
Speaker 1: each chapter and to see if we we spotted anything. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, Chris is an interesting guy as well
Speaker 1: when you read his story and the things that he did.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned in the book, a Coast Guard aircraft
Speaker 1: that Chris flew is now in the Smithsonian and Chris's
Speaker 1: helmet bag is in that is in that aircraft from
Speaker 1: a mission heat flew was very dramatic mission that's detailed
Speaker 1: in the book as well. Uh that happened, you know,
Speaker 1: off the coast of Texas, a very terrible a maritime accident. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know what's funny you mentioned that because
Speaker 1: I was just talking to somebody about the Air and
Speaker 1: Space Museum for the Smithsonian and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: the next time I go up there, I'm definitely gonna
Speaker 1: have to look for that because you said his helmet
Speaker 1: is you have to kind of look for it, but
Speaker 1: it's in the seat, you know, kind of hidden from view.
Speaker 1: So that's something I definitely will look for. And but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: this this book, it's you know, for our listeners out there.
Speaker 1: I can't recommend it enough. It was, like I said,
Speaker 1: it was a page turner. It delves into a very
Speaker 1: diverse I guess a group of helicopter pilots. They all
Speaker 1: come from different backgrounds. Um, I guess they're all. The
Speaker 1: one thing that, other than the love of flying, was
Speaker 1: that linked them all together was like they were kind
Speaker 1: of adrenaline junkies. They liked action sports, maybe not so
Speaker 1: much team sports, but individual sports. And you know, when
Speaker 1: you when you look at this story, and then, as
Speaker 1: you said, some of the vets that reached out to you,
Speaker 1: I encourage all of our listeners again check out this book,
Speaker 1: Mended Wings, because it tells some horrific stories of what
Speaker 1: these guys went through, and it was it's very moving
Speaker 1: and it's like I said, when I got to chapter ten,
Speaker 1: I was very disappointed in the book because it wasn't
Speaker 1: a chapter eleven, So we can't recommend book. And they're
Speaker 1: they're all, well, thank you, Steve, and you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're all. They're all. They all suffered different injuries. And
Speaker 1: as you noted, some of these guys were hurt very badly, uh,
Speaker 1: and some of them not so much. You know, some
Speaker 1: of them maybe they were they were convalescing for a
Speaker 1: few weeks and they were back in the cockpit, but
Speaker 1: that's that's only part of their of the trauma they suffered.
Speaker 1: And and it's it's almost like it's kind of weird,
Speaker 1: but it's it's almost like the the inverse of the
Speaker 1: physical trauma you suffered is the emotional trauma that you suffered. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think there was that that psychology there for
Speaker 1: a lot of these guys that they just it's very
Speaker 1: difficult for for um. And I've not been into combat,
Speaker 1: so I can't you know, al they win in the army.
Speaker 1: I've never been in combat, so I have not experienced
Speaker 1: this firsthand. But my observation is that, uh, for the
Speaker 1: guys that came back unscathed or with minor injuries, it's
Speaker 1: very difficult for them to get their head around the
Speaker 1: fact that that their their buddies were the ones that
Speaker 1: suffered the worst, and and they can't it's hard for
Speaker 1: them to accept. That's that's really really hard. Um. And
Speaker 1: so I found that interesting as well when I was
Speaker 1: when I was going through this war. And maybe that's
Speaker 1: where you know that the Vietnam Wall is to some
Speaker 1: extent very helpful to this generation. And I mentioned that
Speaker 1: a few times in the book, but uh, And also
Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to to talk to Jan Scruggs,
Speaker 1: who's the founder of the Vietnam War More Memorial, about
Speaker 1: the book as well, and I thanked him for for
Speaker 1: having U had the you know, the courage and the
Speaker 1: foresight to really push that project through because I think
Speaker 1: most Vietnam vests, UH, for them the ability to go
Speaker 1: and and to see those names and to touch the
Speaker 1: wall and and kind of um release some of those
Speaker 1: feelings is helpful. But uh, and I'm hoping that books
Speaker 1: like this, like Mended Wings is also helpful in that
Speaker 1: regard as well. Well. We've really appreciate your time this afternoon.
Speaker 1: We appreciate the book obviously, and and again Mended Wings.
Speaker 1: All of our listeners out there and our readers first,
Speaker 1: SOFTWAREP dot com please check this out. This is a
Speaker 1: great book. It's going to be a valued part of
Speaker 1: your military library out there. It's something you'll go back
Speaker 1: to when you're trying to research some of the stuffer
Speaker 1: Vietnam error because all of these guys suffered I think
Speaker 1: without a doubt all of them had PTS when they
Speaker 1: came home. So but before we go, I have the
Speaker 1: read our little blurb here. If you want to get
Speaker 1: soft Reap on your phone, download our free mobile app
Speaker 1: and get easy access to our articles, podcast gear reviews,
Speaker 1: all perfectly formatted to your device. Please subscribe to SOFTWAREP
Speaker 1: dot com to get access to our library of e
Speaker 1: books in our exclusive team room forms of content available
Speaker 1: on all your Apple and Android the vices. Colin, thanks
Speaker 1: for taking the time with us this afternoon. We really
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and uh, kudos to you as a as
Speaker 1: a pilot yourself. I think you nailed it with this book.
Speaker 1: It was really like I said, it was a page
Speaker 1: turner and and one that I really enjoyed reading. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Steve, and I commend everyone to my website
Speaker 1: if they'd like some more information about the book or
Speaker 1: or about me. It's www dot Collin c O l
Speaker 1: I N PAS and Paul cahoun c A h O
Speaker 1: N dot com. The best place to get Mended Wings
Speaker 1: would be on Amazon that you're you're guaranteed to find
Speaker 1: it there, So I commend everybody to that. And I
Speaker 1: really appreciate the time to come on your show, Steve.
Speaker 1: I appreciate as a VET all you do for vets
Speaker 1: and uh and I want to say thank you for
Speaker 1: your service as well, and and thank you for your show,
Speaker 1: and thank you for to software for for having me
Speaker 1: on today. Well it was our pleasure as I said before.
Speaker 1: But yeah, to all our listeners out there, please check
Speaker 1: it out and thanks for listening to our podcast. As always,
Speaker 1: without our listeners and readers, we wouldn't have a site.
Speaker 1: So that's what uh, that's what pays the bills and
Speaker 1: and keeps us all going. So for all of us
Speaker 1: here at Software up Radio and software dot com, we
Speaker 1: want to thank all of you for listening in our
Speaker 1: guests today, callin Calhoun. We'll be back with another podcast
Speaker 1: real soon. Until then, Software up Radio on Time Montarget,
Speaker 1: We'll be back. Been listening to your self repre radio?
Speaker 1: Mhm