Saving a Father & Son in a Blizzard: The Impossible Rescue

Full transcript

13,310 words · 1:08:36 runtime

00:00 Introduction: A Hero's Journey from England to the Coast Guard

0:00 Welcome back everybody to Voice for Valor. Mike here, and I've got an incredible conversation to

00:05 Early Life: Loss, Immigration, and the Power of Resilience

0:06 share with you today. I recently sat down with John, a Coast Guard veteran whose life story

00:08 The Soccer Story: Learning to Never Give Up

00:10 Joining the Service: From Chemistry Class to Flight School

0:12 reads like something out of a movie. He started his journey as a young kid in England and ended

00:14 Apprenticeship: Learning from Vietnam Veterans in New Orleans

0:18 up becoming one of the most respected helicopter pilots in Coast Guard history. Let me tell you,

00:22 The Leonard Skinner Band Crash: A Night of Heroism

0:25 the rescue stories that John shares in this episode left me speechless. He was part of

00:28 The Prince and Diamond Rescue: Saving 522 Lives

0:31 the team that responded to the Leonard Skinner plane crash. Yes, you heard that correct. A

00:35 The Sitka Night Rescue: First Rescue Swimmer Deployment

0:37 moment that changed music history forever. And that's not all. He was also key in a cruise ship

00:41 Miracle in the Storm: Saving a Father and Son

0:44 rescue where they saved over 500 lives in terrible conditions. These weren't just missions. They were

00:45 Legacy and Leadership: The Cost of Service and Mental Health

0:52 moments where ordinary people became extraordinary. What I love about John's perspective is how real he is in split-second decisions with lives hanging in the balance. And how he also balanced being brave while staying compassionate when people were at their most vulnerable. This episode isn't just about heroic rescues. John opens up about the toll his service took on his mental health over the years. He shares his journey of realizing it's okay to ask for help, something I know many of us veterans struggle with. Throughout our conversation, John comes back to the story of the importance of teamwork and what real leadership looks like when the stakes are highest. Even now,

1:46 years after hanging up his uniform, he's still committed to mentoring others and passing on what he's learned. Whether you're someone who loves hearing about daring rescues or you're looking for wisdom about leadership and bouncing back from tough times, I promise you John's story has something valuable for you. So grab your coffee, get comfortable, and join me in this powerful conversation with a true hero who never lost his humanity along the way. Let's dive in. It has been an unbelievably busy time. I'm two weeks from retirement, and I'm so thankful to have these problems of being so busy. So setting up private consulting. I just recently got a job

2:40 with George Mason University, a large local institution here in the greater DC area. I'm working some private equity deals. I've been working on some private equity deals. I've been working on some private equity deals. I'm very busy, and it's because of the power of the network, the power of the friendships, and I'm truly blessed and thankful for all these opportunities I've had. But my goodness, I will be going. I'm going to be busy till 9 30 tonight, from 6 30 this morning to 9 30 tonight, which is a good thing. No, it is. It's great. Time flies, and it's things that I enjoy. I'm completely satisfied with what I'm doing. So that just makes the time just fly by.

3:18 Good. All right. Well, I'm ready when you're ready. All right. Well, John, thank you so much for joining us today. I must say, you've got to be, if not the most interesting person, one of the most interesting people I've ever met on an airplane. I'm literally sitting one row in front of you, and you turn to my wife and I, and you say, hey, what's that hat you're wearing? And I had my Boys for Valor hat on. We started talking about podcasts. We started talking about service. And here we are. You've been on multiple podcasts, and I'm fascinated with your story. And I'm so thankful that we had a chance to meet on that fateful day back in Alaska, I don't know, six months ago or so.

4:01 Yeah. What a divine opportunity that was. And I noticed when you got on the plane with a hat, I didn't want to say anything because I was on airplanes. I just don't want to talk to strangers. They don't want to talk to you. But something just said, maybe just turn around and acknowledge your hat, and here we are. Yeah. And so for the listeners out there, John, mentioned a couple of podcasts that he was on. And I listened to one of them who's a rescue swimmer up in the Alaska area, and he's got hundreds of episodes online. I can share that with the team if anybody wants to listen in. But when I listened to your story, I thought, man, I've got to interview John, for hopefully my sphere of influence can hear your inspirational stories and

4:44 share those with others. So how's it going? Are you ready to start? I'm ready to start. Just Jason Quinn, if I can say his name, Jason Quinn, the real rescue, the real rescue podcast. Was it a fun one to do? Because we covered things I did that got all kinds of awards and recognition and some other things that I had to hang my head in shame because it didn't work out quite right. So I covered everything. The other two podcasts, they were a little bit more tame than that. So I could go any direction you want. It's a family audience, so I'll be careful. Yeah. Well, we're all about inspiration here. So the thing I wanted to ask you first was, your journey from being a young boy in England and watching your father serve in the Royal Navy

5:30 Fleet, the air arm of the Royal Navy Fleet. How did that, how did following your father's footsteps and pursuing that military aviation in America, what motivated you for that path? Well, I didn't give you the full story when I gave my bio. My dad actually died on active duty. So we were stationed in Malta when I was just really little. And believe it or not, he died from polio. And in Malta, right in Malta. In Malta. So we moved back and it obviously changed the trajectory of our lives at that point. And, you know, back in those days, in the early 50s, you know, a single, my mom was pregnant with my brother. A single mom didn't have the support network that you see today, whether a military

6:16 support network, which she should have had, which didn't really exist, or, you know, just a local friend's neighborhood network. So ultimately, she, you know, she came back for a couple years, and then she actually went away, believe it or not. She went to sea. She worked on the canard lines. In fact, those days, the ships going between South Hampton and New York were transportation. They weren't cruise ships. That was how you got from America to the continent or vice versa. And so we lived with my aunt and uncle for a number of years. And then we went to boarding school. So my brother and I were in boarding school for a number of years. So that actually really shaped us.

6:57 I think in some ways for the good. So my mom remarried to another English guy, wonderful guy. He was my stepfather. Wonderful, wonderful guy. And they moved to America and they were, essentially, we'll talk about immigration. They moved to America and they were servants. They were household servants. My mom was a cook and a housekeeper. My dad was the butler and chauffeur. So they eventually brought us over to America. We didn't want to leave. They didn't want to leave. At that point we'd been gone. They'd been gone for a couple years. My brother and I didn't want to come to America. You would think you would, but we didn't. We had our friends, our family and everything was there. But we came.

7:40 And, you know, I ended up graduating from high school. And I went to college. And then joined the Coast Guard. So that's kind of how that all happened. So the things that, you know, kind of shape my, shape my career, I think one thing that is a common theme I find sometimes is that the throughout my life from way back then two things one common themes is that one is don't ever give up and i can think of so many times where if i just caved in or just said this is too hard or i can't figure a way out my my life would have changed and for some reason or other i've always just hung in there and kept on going it's true on that rescue and sitka we could have given up

8:26 and just you know packed it in and come home uh it's true in other ways isn't it and i always tell this story to people because i think this is another life story um that i that i you know doesn't come up in podcasts but i think it pertains to your particular i think background there is that uh when i went to so i played soccer my whole life you know in england football played soccer growing up and then came to this country and played soccer and started the soccer team at my high school we didn't have one and then i went to school so i went to san diego state it was a division one team and i went down then i was walked on to play soccer and i tried out for a couple weeks and i was really really good in high school when i did great in

9:05 high school but then they start to you know the the skill levels get higher and they start to refine the teams down so i was there for like three weeks and the coach came over to me one day and said you know i i don't think you should you're gonna make it and so i i looked and i said well you know he's named and you talked about his name was george logan scottish guy another great guy another somebody that had an influence on my life um but he's i told myself coach i didn't know if i was going to play soccer but i was going to play soccer and i was going to play recreational soccer i said i came down to play for you so he said okay yeah it was one of those

9:40 things i could have just said okay whatever i'll go play you know go ahead soccer i didn't want to do that and so i played and then within about three weeks he said okay i want you to be the captain of the team so that's sort of my don't give up message don't give up you know if you've got a gold if you've got a dream do whatever you need to do to to achieve that you know and if it if you get roadblocks find a way around it or over so that that's sort of an introduction to that and actually i applied to the coast guard academy finishing high school uh i applied to coast guard academy and i people as well how did you find out about the coast guard it was literally this i was in a chemistry class with my buddy ernie smith

10:23 and neither one of us were good at chemistry we're terrible so there was an announcement on the pa that yeah we were i i owe my coast guard career to chemistry so the pa said hey there's a lot of people in the country and i'm going to be a military pilot and i was like 1970ish something like that so vietnam was still going on so just the notion of joining any military organization wasn't was sort of frowned on but i've always wanted to be in the military always wanted to be a helicopter pilot from the time i was little so i looked at him he looked at me we weren't connecting on the periodic table in any way so we just said hey let's go so i went to the coast guard

11:00 recruiter end up applying for the academy my friend ernie joined the navy uh went to the aoc program and flew p3s so um that's how i got and i didn't get into the academy i should say um i was an alternate candidate but i also wasn't a citizen so that wouldn't have worked so i had to become 18 to become a citizen so then i went to college and went through ocs after i graduated but again i think don't give up you know the academy didn't work out probably good for me it didn't um in some ways and then finished high school college and went to officer candidate school in york to virginia i want to hear a little bit more about the history of the academy and the history of the academy

11:40 i want to hear a little bit more about the history of the academy i want to hear a little bit more about the history of the academy hit that vietnam piece but what you just mentioned made me realize i've interviewed quite a few people quite a few successful service members and they seem to have a recurring theme of athletics i think athletics is so important in developing that resilience that you're just that you're describing through through soccer my youngest son is a smaller skinny kid and we kind of forced him into basketball and now he's finally to that stage he's really building that confidence and excelling far beyond he would have that he would have ever

12:17 imagined and i hope that one day when he's you know 18 years old or he's you know facing a a tough decision where people are telling him no hopefully he leans back on that on the on the sports and that experience and so what do you think about sports you think more kids should be playing sports what are your thoughts well i think there's always benefits to everything you know some kids just i will never be sports kids and that's that's fine and then they shouldn't be ostracized in a way for not being especially once you get to middle school high school but sports is a great outlet and um for me um and it's again it's one of the side there's two recurring themes one is don't give up the other one is and i say this with no

12:58 uh no arrogance or anything else but i always seem to float to the top to the leadership pile you know without sometimes not even you know like i went down to san diego state and you know said from going from you know don't play to would you be the captain of the team and i didn't certainly didn't ask for that it just came along you know it's same thing when i was in high school the soccer team i just ended up being elevated and um and then it went on all throughout my life it's just so to your point it gives you leadership experience you know even if you're not the team leader but it gives you an opportunity to practice leadership practice teamwork to uh to

13:39 figure out how to play and work with others because i i played on teams where you had people that players and it didn't matter how good they were ultimately they were never successful yeah there's a book out there the five um the five dysfunctions of the team and it really talks about no matter how good you are as a star player if you're not coming together with the team you're you're not gonna you're not you're not going to succeed so um well thank you for that now i wanted to ask a question in one of your previous podcasts you talked about vietnam and your early career the folks you flew with can you describe some of that vietnam pilot experience that you that you garnered

14:21 yeah and it's only been lately since i've had a chance to talk on these podcasts that actually changed the terminology but you know when i finished i went to pensacola navy flight school in pensacola and got my wings and then went to mobile where the coast guard has aviation training center and i went to with for us it was advanced helo training so i went from flying hueys and jet rangers to flying the h3s or s61s h3s at the amphibious helicopter and then i went to new orleans and there's luck i got there in 1976 so vietnam would have been over a couple years and the coast guard because they were short pilots um ultimately brought just a cadre of vietnam pilots in was navy marine corps

15:06 and army particularly army um i don't remember any air force guys but but the the greatest thing is is coming out as you know when you first come out of flight school you've got 250 hours or whatever it is you have and you you're excited you got your wings but you know absolutely nothing you know you don't want to be left alone in a plane because you know you're dangerous and what i what i found was that these guys virtually every one of them have been in combat and somewhere another in fact one of the the guy that was my stick mate in mobile had been shot down seven times you know i had his transmission shot out and been crash landed on helo pads and lz's and these guys were just phenomenal pilots so my

15:49 time my first couple years in new orleans as a brand new pilot what i always considered was my apprenticeship in aviation because i went from you know we've got 250 hours i've got a naval aviator designation but i really don't know anything and they trained me in my craft in such a way that i always felt that people after me were disadvantaged because they didn't have that depth of experience that the coolness under the fire um i remember one time we were went out to do an age ation mission where we're just working on a light at the very end of the mississippi river there's a big long jetty that goes out there so if you're facing south you know you're looking towards

16:28 venezuela but you can't see it there's nothing but ocean out there so there's no no physical reference so you're trying to hover over moving ocean it's kind of tough because you know it's one thing if you're over a runway and you can see a spot down beneath you but when you've got waves going by it's really hard to stay in one spot you know within a foot or two so this other guy was a chinook pilot he was a army pilot he was he was i think like my aviation god he this guy could fly the heck of an airplane so he was flying over there in the right seat and he says johnny you want to give it a try so sure you know i still brand new and he back in those days was smoking and so he

17:08 gave me the controls and i think i probably went like 10 feet left 10 feet right forwards backwards and i wasn't even in close because i was looking at moving waves i couldn't tell so then he just said johnny johnny johnny johnny and he smoking his cigarette and he just grabbed the cyclic and the collective and he just it went from being all over the place to just rock steady and i just looked at that guy said i want to be just like him without the cigarettes oh my goodness yeah i uh recently interviewed another army helicopter pilot and he was a chinook pilot and he was talking about some of their some of their missions and i can't even imagine what it was like in vietnam

17:55 and he was talking about some of their missions and i can't even imagine what it was like in vietnam and he was talking about some of their missions and i can't even imagine what it was like in vietnam conference over veterans day and the surviving team members from hal moore's platoon uh the book we were soldiers once and young all the survivors from his from his team were there at the conference and it was just so inspirational to see these guys and hear their stories of what it was like to be first one of the one of those first helicopter flights that that came in and landed in vietnam so throughout your career john you've demonstrated obviously incredible courage while also showing deep care for your crew and those that you rescued

18:39 how do you cultivate both bravery and compassion as a core leadership trait that's a you know that's an interesting question because i hadn't really thought about it in those terms but um you know the costco's mission is is search and rescue multiple missions but you know it's really a really interesting thing to see uh whether it's an aircraft or it's a boat so so i mean that's just built into us and we'll be trained for it all the time um and it's not always as altruistic as that you know sometimes you know it's like you run you run over somebody to get in the helicopter and the alarm goes off because you want to be the first one out there not because you're really i

19:21 don't say you don't care about the person being rescued you just want to be the one to do the rescuing so so there's a lot of thrill adrenaline that goes into it as well but i think that um what the cost guard was the fact that you do save lives you know you do all the practical thing you do all the training because it's it's like all the other you know high level military organizations and the coast guard over the water is probably the elite helicopter organization in the world um you know they you know you've got other guys you know army does that has special ops and the air force does their thing and then the navy has their thing but the in terms of being

19:57 able to hover at night over a moving target um the coast guard is absolutely the best so you've got the training and then you know for me personally it's just uh maybe it's just who i am i i just it's just caring about people uh and just making sure that you you're willing um wanting to just do what it takes to to rescue somebody who's in distress and i've i've rescued everything from dogs to to people who had missing body parts and people who were barely hanging on people who were lost at sea and we found them just a head bobbing up and down and you know it's that thrill that goes with it truthfully being successful knowing you accomplished a mission um at one time we got called out i was in astoria oregon got called about three o'clock in

20:44 the morning and a boat sank so we it was still dark it was just getting light by the time we got down there we're about 90 miles off the shore of newport oregon and there were four guys uh one in life raft and two had three hanging on and we picked them up you know took them back to newport and they all got out climbed the back of the truck and just drove away not even a handshake or a thank you or wave or you know whatever it was and i remember thinking well that was that seemed kind of rude at least wave but you know what that's what we're there for that's what we do and there's nobody that would argue with them in those cold temperatures of oregon waters if you hadn't found

21:23 them what would be a typical survivor rate or like how much time could you see somebody surviving out there in those cold northern pacific waters if you hadn't found them so early well they did so which helped them but they could probably last a couple days you know depending on the condition of survival suits and if they'd been injured when they went in one guy was in the life raft but um you know 90 miles i was sure it's a long way you know and you've got the humble current the japanese current going right by this there's no telling where they would have ended up so uh yeah we definitely saved their lives uh certainly made them more comfortable and you know if they hadn't

21:59 been found with a good chance they could have lost it three or four days maybe without uh depending and not even a thank you not even but i contrast that with some other people i still like we've rescued i still stay in touch with them today so you know yes you get the good ones and you get the ones that aren't as good wow well can you share with us your first rescue mission as an aircraft commander when you go down there in the new orleans area yeah this was actually a night rescue and it just happened to be my first mission as the aircraft commander pic and so i was actually in a i wasn't even a base i was actually in a night class night school class got a call hey you need

22:42 to come back in there's been a plane crash and this was october 1977. there's been a plane crash up near jackson mississippi so you know just the thrill of the moment let's get going let's launch let's go so i climbed in the right seat pilot seat and we took off up into the night climbed over new orleans up towards uh somewhere that just basically turned out to be a wooded area just about 15 miles south of jackson mississippi and when we got there there was just all kinds of activity there were planes circling overhead from the coast guard mobile there were helicopters from mobile but we were the only one that had what we call a night sun it's this humongous multi-kindle milling candle power light to illuminate the air so we just hovered

23:25 over the trees i didn't know what was going on other than use a plane crash so hovering over the trees and uh you can see activity down there just barely sector it's a really heavily wooded area and what had happened is this plane had been flying from uh south carolina to was on its way to shreveport that had a really had a world famous rock band on board and so everybody was trying to pull baby out of the trees and we hovered over these trees about an hour or so then they said they go ahead and land as a field so i just sidestep to the right and land in the field and they start loading people up in the back of the plane and as they were loading up they said oh yeah this is the leonard skinner man i said well i knew who leonard skinner

24:10 was so we had you know three or four badly injured guys in the back so we just piled them in took them up to jackson mississippi and uh and to the hospital landed the hospital helipad and dropped them off and uh so that was my my first night rescue was to rescue uh three or four the leonard skinner badminton unbelievable i mean i know you've shared that story with me before and i mentioned to you in the past i can't even imagine here it's essentially your dollar ride is as the guy in charge and and you go to this crazy show and you know you're a guy and you're a fan of the crash and such a cult following in the military of the Leonard Skinner band. And here you are

24:52 having an opportunity to once again, save lives. So I have to ask, have you had an opportunity to reach out to any of these family members or bandmates and share this story, share this discussion? No, I actually really haven't. Had I been a little bit more quick with it, I probably would have said, hey, can I get an autograph or something? But I don't really think they were in the mood for that. They were all bandaged up and banged up. So probably wasn't the right time. No, I've never really reached out to them. It'd be kind of fun to just connect and say, hey, I was there back in 1977. And we're really glad to be able to help you guys. And you know, the fun thing about rescuing people, and I'll probably talk about another rescue here

25:35 in a minute, is that you've got the thrill of the rescue. But then what happens to those people after you rescue them? What happens to their lives? You know, and so at least, you know, the Skins guys, there were five people killed. And I suggest for those that don't know what happened, it was a Convair 580 that took off from Greenville, South Carolina on the route to Shreveport to do a concert. And I don't even know how you figure this out, because that Convair 580 has like a 1,200 mile fuel range, and it's only at 500 miles. They ran out of fuel. I mean, I don't even, it was a pilot. I didn't even, that's incomprehensible to me. But so they ran out of fuel and crashed into this heavily wooded area.

26:14 They were trying to make the field, I think, that I landed in, but they didn't. So they crashed into the woods, and the aircraft was just demolished, and the wings in places, and fuselage in places, and whatnot. So five people killed, the two pilots, Ronnie Van Zandt, his girlfriend, and the band manager were killed. So five people died, but the rest of them made it. Thank God for that. Well, once you shared that story with me, I started reaching out to some of my friends, and a few of my friends are affiliated with Guitars for Vets. I think that's the name of the organization. And so when I shared this story, they said that they were going to reach out to

26:50 Leonard Skinner Band because they've done events with them in the past. And I said, well, you live in Alaska now. And I said, if there's a way that we can line this up on their next Alaska visit, if we can get John, whether that's a backstage pass or some opportunity to just say hello to the band, I'm sure they would be just unbelievably happy to meet somebody that was part of that mission on that fateful night. Wouldn't that be fun? Well, we will do our best to make it happen. Because like I said, I do have some friends in high places. And I think that that would be just such a neat experience for everyone involved for you to be able to do. And I can say this for all the coasties

27:30 that I know that nobody ever does this for any kind of a payback. I mean, that's just not who we are. And just like every rescue I've been on, it just happened to be my day. I had the duty that day or I got called in. You know, they don't say, well, let's let's go down the list and pick the best guy here. Everybody's equally capable. And you just, it's just your turn in the barrel. It just happened to be my day. And, you know, I also had, I won't even go into it, but I had my first offshore night saw rescue was, was less successful than that. I mean, ultimately, we rescued the guy, but I won't go into the details. It was actually in the Jason Quinn rescue, but it, but things didn't go as well as I'd like. So, you know, you got the good

28:13 ones and you got the ones that didn't go so well. So now that you mentioned Jason, and you were talking about one of your other rescues, this other rescue is the largest or the most folks saved. Please, please share. Yeah. So when I was, so I went from New Orleans to Kodiak and, you know, was involved in numerous rescues in Kodiak. It was just back in those days, it was 1979, 1980. And the, and the fishing industry in those days was not as well prepared as they are today, prepared in terms of vessel inspections, the Coast Guard does, which keep them from, you know, getting hypothermia, EPIRBs, electronic position indicating beacons. So the, the industry has really, really improved. But in those days,

29:01 I mean, we, they were just one after another tragic losses of boats. Well, this one was a cruise ship that was transiting from Japan, repositioning to probably to Canada because of the Jones Act. So about 120 miles offshore of Yakutat, so about 120 miles offshore, the engine room caught fire. And this was the motor vessel cruise ship, Prince and Diamond, Holland America cruise ship. They had 522 passengers and crew on board. And the engine, one of the engine rooms, engines rather caught fire. They shut it down. And just as luck would have it, that was the one that ran the pumps. So they, they were a mess, you know, so they started flooding because they were trying to put the fires out. And ultimately about two or

29:44 three o'clock in the morning, all 522 people abandoned ship into lifeboats and the lifeboats weren't motorized. They were just unpowered. So I had the duty that night, got a call about three o'clock in the morning, just like one of those days was my turn, and flew up to Valdez first, then Valdez to Yakutat, refueled, and then went offshore. It's just, I got out there, there were three helos from Sitka, Coast Guard Air Station Sitka were there. There was, I was the first helo from Kodiak. There were two or three helos from the 442 squadron, which is a, a Royal Canadian Forces Rescue Squadron based in Comox, BC. They were there and they had the Labradors.

30:32 And then there were the C-130, Coast Guard C-130s overhead. There were Canadian Buffaloes, which were the fixed wing, were overhead. So it was just like, there were planes everywhere. I mean it was like World War II. It was like buzzing around and it was low vis, quarter mile fog, you know, 15-foot seas maybe. And I just remember getting out there and just... use lifeboats everywhere i mean just have all this so basically just go pick pick a lifeboat so went over to a lifeboat started hauling people out and filled up the back and then it just so happened to be a tanker it was the tanker williamsburg that was en route from valdez to southern california i went and landed on this tanker and and just dropped all these people

31:16 off on the tanker and then went back again and started picking people up and and by now we were getting low on fuel because it's a couple hours round trip in low on fuel we had about 10 people in the back and and as of the light and there were still people in the lifeboat we were hoisting from there were 19 people total uh because as the story was ultimately told that was the lifeboat that i hoisted from was the was ultimately those people were left overnight there was the only lifeboat that didn't get completely rescued and there were two air force pjs on them as the air force dropped people off and they did the pj drop and anyway but the one of the interesting stories on this is as we were hoisting these uh people out

32:02 they're all older folks you know they they all had that they weren't dressed and they had night clothes on they had you know pajamas and whatnot dressing gowns on and one old lady got in the basket and just as we're about to lift her off it fell off the back of this boat the transom just got knocked through a wave and she got dragged through a wave she got dumped so anyway she we got her up she came in and i remember looking at her and i was like oh my god she's got a life raft over my shoulder and there was one lady sitting on the life raft and she was just drenched but she was busy putting on makeup you know doing a doing her lipstick you know i was

32:34 seeing this and which is like you know what it was a priority yeah you gotta get your priorities stayed and then everybody was just wet and cold and there was actually one guy in the back passed out from hypothermia we eventually landed in yak attack and we were disembarking everybody and the this one old lady turned out to be the one that got dunked i was helping her down the ladder and there was all these camera crews there and they came running over to her and they said to her well man could you you know what happened tell us what it was like and so she i was helping her down i was still holding her hand when she said this she goes well you know what i'm 86 years old

33:09 they dunked me i'm too old for this so i let go of her hand and she walked away 86 years old when you when you were describing the story i was thinking to myself my goodness with all those aircraft all those helicopters low visibility there were no mid-air collisions everybody was safe it was close yeah there was actually a really close the real a close midair uh between a c-130 and a bus uh and a lab uh labrador native laboratory i mean they they were so close that as i'm talking to the c-130 ac he basically just pulled the yoke back as hard as he could gave it all the power he couldn't just just did an alley-oop over this uh labrador and it was probably within a couple hundred yards really close these historical rescue missions do they

33:57 have any sort of reunion or anything like that to invite back the service members that were part of that part of that rescue this one did um it's still called the prince and down was the name of the boat the prince and down rescue association and we've been to a couple of them and um you know they're still talking about it because it's now what uh 45 years later so a lot of the people are getting a little bit old so but it was the the reason that again this was a significant rescue and that and i got a dfc and all my crews got then the other crew's got dfc and stuff like that um is the reason it was so significant is because it was to this day the largest successful maritime

34:36 rescue in history in the world because nobody died all 522 was saved and you know somebody got dunked in fact when i went back to go back to kodiak two days later um because i was when i landed i was bagged out i couldn't find him i had too much time 10 hours on and i had to wait a day before i could fly back and when i got back in the maintenance crew and the hangar there my maintenance crew god bless them they put this huge huge banner up that said 521 saved one dunked so they didn't miss a beat oh that that that's a very exciting story no fatalities and an old lady giving you grief yeah i love that yeah so you mentioned the distinguished flying cross for for our listeners out there that aren't familiar

35:21 that's essentially the most prestigious flying award that you can receive and not only did you and your crewmates receive these distinguished flying crosses but you're also now part of an organization right that is that is continuing this legacy please please share well i and i've got one more dfc story i'll tell you maybe i can if i okay if i'll just get to that then it'll kind of wrap it all together it'll make sense so from um from kodiak we went to astoria then astoria to sitka alaska and there i was the head of aircraft maintenance which is you know promotion and it was a specific job title i was in charge of all the helo maintenance and all the crew well on october excuse me on december

36:04 10th 1980 a 7 1987 i again i got called out to on a case and it was about seven o'clock at night the alarm goes off and they said there's a boat sinking near sitka so this is december it's just nighttime so we launched out and as soon as we took off um you know i climbed 500 feet and this for the you know for people that are flying today or just recently retired you know there's no gps there's no nvgs there's none of that stuff it's you know we had basics you know had vor had tacan kind of stuff but no none of this the tools and techniques they have today so you know take it off and fly maybe two minutes plus you know flying into alaska there's no other lights it's pitch black it's just black black black so you're just

36:54 relying strictly on radar and relying on the in our case this was the tacan dme and all of a sudden the the radar quit and every every piece of navigate good and i looked at the window we iced up we're at 500 feet completely iced over so i dropped down to about 300 feet and tried to shed the ice get a little bit warmer and so eventually the radar came back on and climbed back up to 500 feet and we could hear this guy calling mayday but we couldn't see him because just low viz it was snowing just blizzard i mean it went from nothing when we were on base it came out of nowhere um and we couldn't see anything so i asked my uh my co-pilot to say hey just get on the radio just call this guy have him count down from 10 to 1 backwards and we'll do a

37:44 radio point 88 point so we did and we got a needle point swung over that way got over there and uh there's this little boat the thing was 26 feet long i mean just think about that that's like the size of most people's pleasure boats and it was a commercial fishing boat so there was literally deck to put the rescue basket i mean if we wanted to we couldn't so we got over the top of this guy and by the time we got there the winds were gusting to 70 knots over 70 knots and the seas were 35 feet they were just monstrous this little boat and it's dark and it's totally dark it's nighttime it's a blizzard condition so pulled into a 50-foot hover that was almost impossible

38:25 to maintain just like back in the early discussion you know when you've got a fixed reference point hovering at night it's no big deal uh but when you've got waves going by at 35 knots and but 70 knots it's really kind of hard so but we stayed and from the pilot's perspective and when you start to hoist over somebody you know the boat goes behind us so i can't see it when it's when i when he's in front of me i can see it but hovering over this guy and literally just out of nowhere the nose of the helicopter just hits up about 15 degrees and we were at 50 feet to begin with and we start going backwards and we're going backwards at 50 and 60 knots and down backwards and down and

39:05 i mean it seemed like an eternity we're going backwards and down pulled full power you know that all the torque cages were redlining the engines were redlining the uh i had full forward cyclic nothing was happening nothing was wasn't responding and we're still going backwards and down and my co-pilot who went on to be a alaska aliens pilot uh he looked at me and i looked at him but we didn't say anything i just but we both knew that hey this is it we're going in we're going to die i mean there's just no there was no panic it was just like hey we're going in and uh and then just after that i you know when you when you if you sit at your desk and somebody

39:42 comes behind you kind of quietly and you don't hear them they lean over you know you can feel their presence well in that particular helicopter the uh the crew could walk up into the cockpit not like the h-60 but the h3 you can walk into the cockpit so i felt like what i thought was my flight mechanic in the back my hoist operator leaning over my shoulder probably wondering what the heck is he doing up here and and it was so real i turned around told him to sit down because i hate sitting down we're going to crash he said hey i'm not up here it was such a real presence and as soon as that presence happened we stopped and it shuddered a stop and we were at 15 feet with 15

40:20 degrees nose up which means the tail was probably within a foot or two of hitting water and we just came to a shuddering halt and i remember looking at the airspeed indicator and a 15-foot hover and it was 55 knots so we moated on back got over the boat that same thing happened three times by the way during this rescue so we moved back up uh got over this hill and then we got back to the sky and just realized that there was just no way we could get the basket down so it just was wasn't enough room on that thing that back deck a tiny little boat so we just told him told him and we didn't know who it was at the time we said hey skipper you're gonna have to jump overboard

40:53 you know he's got his survival suit on jump overboard and then get away from the boat so we can rescue you so he did and it turned out it was a fisherman and his six-year-old son and he strapped his son to his chest and jumped overboard and um and we still couldn't get the basket to him because the boat was still right there and it eventually sank it just went stern down and the bow came up and it just went underwater but we still couldn't get to him so i said to my rescue swimmer and the thing that makes this whole thing significant is the coast guard had never used a rescue swimmer ever in night time at sea conditions the program was brand new in 1987. so we end up being the first using the first deployment of the rescue swim on

41:34 the coast guard history in at sea at night conditions um so anyway i asked you know i rescued swimmers named jeff i said jeff so we can't rescue these guys unless you're willing to go and he says put me in sir so strapped him on he put him out the door on the sling and as soon as this fins hit the water we started going backwards again and he just punched out because he would just started dragging backwards and i could i before i put him in i told my crew i said i don't care what happens to the fisherman i didn't know it was a six-year-old boy but i said i don't care we're not losing our rescue swimming we're not going to lose said everybody train your eyes

42:10 everything don't divert from that so i can see jeff swimmers spinning in circles because he was separated by by uh you know 35-foot seas and it was just howling winds and snow he didn't know where to go because he was disoriented so i did what i told him not to do is i moved the search light because i can see the reflective tape of the survival suits in front of me i moved it over and pointed it at them he somehow knew to follow that beam of light i mean it's really it's really kind of miraculous hold that beam of light over about four mind just gigantic waves and it came up upon him and he said to his surprise it was a fisherman and his six-year-old son and again this was the first time that even though he trained his first time

42:52 ever really happened and so the fisherman said hey you know who are you he said i'm a rescue swimmer i'm here to get you out and the fisherman this is this is the best part of the whole story the fisherman said well do you think they can rescue us and he said and so jeff said no problem we do this all the time and it was his first time ever you know and i just good for him i mean it's just that story has been told over and over but i mean that just gives you the just an indication of how well trained how motivated those guys are it's just it's just it was miraculous but it was training crew coordination so anyway we tried and tried and tried and still couldn't get them she couldn't stay over them the target that those 50 60 note

43:32 winners were just blowing the basket and the heel all over the place and i remember asking my crew i said hey and we've been at this for 45 minutes as we almost crashed four times i said there's nobody at us there's no other helos anywhere near this the only one back at the station was broken so you know if we go in this is it i said nobody's going to come get us we're going to lose these guys so what if we throw the life raft out and let them ride it out for the night i'd heard people you know back in the days i heard that that was a technique that had been used and thank goodness nobody said anything they and then so i said okay let's go give it another try so again

44:08 don't give up i went back and with the second try we got the two fishermen his son and then i put the basket back down again to jeff as soon as he got in the basket we just got knocked backwards again and we were dragging him through these waves at 50 knots 50 miles an hour and i could see him in front of me now because he was we're dragging him and he hit the crest of these waves three times there's huge explosion of water uh just boom boom boom and the helicopter shuddered on the third one and the guy in the back saying you killed him you killed him you killed him it's like not anything you ever want to hear um and jeff came swinging up i mean he came swinging so close to the tail rotor that the guys in the back were

44:50 doing everything they could to keep that cable the hoist cable from going up into the tail rotor and got him finally got it settled down brought him in and he lost his mask and his snorkel got wiped out and there was crashes and he came back and threw up a couple times gave us his thumbs up and then he was okay and we went back in and landed and now it was i mean we all knew that we'd done something that nobody had ever done before it was i mean it was it was really a really a momentous event and um i am happy to say i did half a million dollars worth of damage to the helicopter you know they had to replace the transformation as a hoisted family and they had to repair all kinds of stress damage to the tail

45:31 pylon so that helo was on his commission of like two or three months afterwards but then we went on and uh you know when when i got back the uh the command said hey that was a great rescue we're going to put you in for a dfc and i said i said don't put me in for a dfc unless you're going to ruin i said i don't want it so the rescue swimmer got the first dfc in the coastline history for doing a rescue and the rest of the crew got dfcs too and then we went on the you know the award circuit forever after that and and that kind of fast forward to maybe a dfc story is that we were at an awards ceremony in uh lake city florida and jeff and i had been selected to go and it was the

46:12 eaa experimental aircraft association stun and fun flying and we were supposedly the vips so we were actually you know the guys that were the i guess vips and i you know i never felt like a vip i just it was fun to go because i'd never been there but i remember looking in the corner this big huge tent there were these two old guys sitting there and i something just you know just kind of kind of me talking about your hat i said i just need to go talk to these guys and it turned out these two old guys were the pilot and co-pilot of the memphis bell oh my gosh that sounded fun yeah bob morgan veritas i got it all i got their autographs i'm like let us get it i got these guys all the time

46:57 and you know here we are saying oh you guys the vip is going to give a speech i said how can i say anything when i'm looking at these two guys who are just legends they're just these guys are heroes these are guys that i've read about so you know i didn't feel so significant at that point but what it did do further on is when i was i was asked to be now the board chair of the distinguished flying course committee i thought what i mean what does my role here my role is really to help preserve teach and uh promote uh you know there's the history the legacy of guys like bob morgan and jim varinus on the memphis bell and there's and i've since i've been part of this organization i've run into guys who have seven distinguished flying

47:41 courses well that's the cost of entry you have those things flying costs but the guys one guy that i met just not too long ago got three dfcs in one week in vietnam on the back of a carrier and there's just more recently uh just just in the last week or two there was a uh a crew in uh florida i forget they're in uh southern florida the one that's close eglin yeah the mcdill the mcdill guys that just got an award for you know working on the you know refueling a tanker crew and there's another tanker crew in knoxville uh and there's a crew in seymour johnson in march that's all getting dfc so um you get to meet these guys and talk to people who've just

48:25 done amazing amazing things at a moment in time and there's not one of them that i've run into that said well i'm special and that's why i go to dfc no you're just an ordinary guy doing your job to the best of your ability and you happen to be in that right place in the right time and to come back to your original theme the thing that i've really found fascinating is okay you got your award you move on with your life you eventually get out of the service then what what do you do and some of the people i've run into including yourself now um take that military career and leverage it uh and into some really remarkable achievements um you know some people by the by the virtue of the the pay grade or the level they they

49:11 move that they retire at you know they go on to corporate jobs just because the connections but the people i've been really impressed with are the ones that have created things through their training through their abilities through their connections and i haven't run into anybody yet who who didn't do remarkable things and and maybe it's all connected you know just to you know as a pilot by the time you get like into the military then you go with the flight school you finish and then you go up to the various um you know co-pilot first pilot aircraft commander and you go through the different levels i mean you're constantly being filtered um you know

49:51 because not everybody makes it to the top and so i think by for the most part um you know the pilots and across the military uh by the time you reach you know the pinnacle of your careers i mean you're a highly trained highly motivated uh individual uh not like anybody else and thank goodness for that i tell my wife all the time she jokes around she says here he is on his recruiting pitch again but any any kid that i have a chance to talk to that has questions about where they want their path or where they want their life to go i am always telling them service military service is the greatest thing that i have ever had an opportunity to participate in because we

50:35 developed such a tight-knit group that you and i have completely different backgrounds from completely different decades from completely different services but we have a connection whether people realize it or not absolutely and so i just keep trying to tell people it is so important to live a purpose-driven life and to support others you know you being a coast guard guy you'll get my metaphor i tell people all the time you know rising tides lift all boats let's all bring everyone up together and let's succeed together and it's just been such an amazing experience and i would be more than happy to introduce you to some of my my dfc friends from the younger

51:19 generation i think i shared with you one of the he was a load master for me when i was flying c-17s out of mccord and so he was enlisted and then he went to officer training school became a team pilot and he got a dfc for being one of the c-17s during the initial day of the evacuation of afghanistan i'd love i'd love to meet you but and it's yeah and i just want to say this i just want to say this let me drop you there but but you know as i was saying all these great things about military military you know it doesn't mean we're better than anybody else it doesn't mean anything other than the fact that you can look at somebody's the career path they've chosen how they've used the opportunities they've been given

52:01 because not everybody does there's not everybody succeeds in the military but the ones that make it at the end and with distinction i mean it's you could like you say you could pick one up put in the air force or the coast guard or the navy or whatever it is it's a character personality character i that i think is just bred for success and um you know you don't think about this when you first get in the military what you want to do is you know my case all i want to do is fly i didn't care about anything else but as you get a bit older and you that 20 years that i spent in was the best job i ever had and and there's i would do it over again in that particular time frame i'd do it over again a thousand times yeah i i agree i i'm not

52:48 saying the military is is better than some other job i think the fact that they they essentially have a process of breaking you down and building you up as a team and i and i think that that recipe could be successful in multiple industries you just have to be willing to go through that those you know those first few tough weeks of of breaking somebody down and getting them to realize hey you're going to be a lot better if you come together as a team well and i went on from my military i stayed here in kodiak just because my two of my boys were going into high school and my wife father actually was a coastie retired as the commanding officer instinctive during the princeton unrest here actually um

53:31 but they wanted to stay so we sort of made career choice to stay here in kodiak and and after that um you know i look back and without my military training and background i wouldn't have been able to achieve the things i've done you know i initially opened a franchise mailboxes et cetera franchises now the ups store and when we were going through training they said well you know we're looking for advertising ideas so i said why don't you like do an ad in kodiak's because if you can get stuff from kodiak and ship them anywhere i remember the guy said ah that's a bad idea so about three months later they said hey we're coming to kodiak we're going to shoot a super bowl

54:11 ad so you know within like two years of getting out of the coast guard i was on a super bowl commercial 1977 super bowl commercial it was green bay versus whoever they played um i know green bay won and i was on a super bowl commercial and who would have thought that didn't even didn't even think about it and then we ended up closing that business for a number of reasons and i bought into a seafood business and you know i at the time i bought the seafood i didn't know a salmon from a black cut i just didn't but you know i figured it out and uh ultimately you know grew the business to the point where we're producing millions of pounds of seafood a year and it ultimately came down to just managing people and resources different

54:58 people different resources different languages maybe but it was just people and resources so i took that military training of managing people and resources and you know and adapted it to you civilian world and it worked out fine one of my mentors he said mike nobody cares about what airplane you fly what they care about is you understanding money and manpower and so you saying people and resources having the respect for people and understanding how important they are to the mission we're in love with all these fancy airplanes and all these different exquisite weapon systems but when it comes down to it right it's it's the people it's the people and so i once again we come from completely different military

55:43 but we're both learning the same the same uh moral to the story and i think if i had to say what somebody said what is your strength as a leader and and i you know i have master's degrees in leadership and management type stuff but what is your strength and and you hit on it in the beginning and i didn't really ever think of it in this way but i know from feedback is that by probably my focus as a leader has always been on taking care of my people always you know and maybe other things but i always always whether my the people i'm talking about were from el salvador spoke no english or filipino uh in the case of the seafood industry or you know people from the

56:27 military from every walk of life from mobile alabama to wherever uh southern guys or northern guys western guys just uh but taking care of people and and i always felt that burden to do that especially my my crew uh and i can't really tell you how much of a burden it is to do that and i always felt that burden to do that especially my my crew uh and i can't really tell them why but i just i just had a burden to take care of my crew and it always pays always paid dividends and i didn't do it for that reason that was just a benefit jeff you mentioned jeff your rescue swimmer uh during that during that critical uh mission how much of an interaction do you have i i imagine you guys just have a an unbreakable click at this point yeah from from

57:11 these experiences i you know i i stay in touch with them communicate with you oh yeah yeah i stay in touch with them a couple times a month uh he retired as an e8 as the most decorated rescue swimmer in the coast guard as it turned out he was uh he stayed in long enough to uh to serve during katrina so if you remember seeing the katrina coast guard uh doing rescues during katrina and you see guys hanging off the wires swinging feet for us into windows that was him he went home and he rescued hundreds of people during katrina so he um you know he did had a remarkable remarkable career so yeah we stay in touch and uh funny story in san diego uh for an award another ward show we were down there for another ward thing after the

57:56 the uh bitumen rescue and we got our flight suits on and jeff is from alabama so he's a really strong accent and i can't do it justice so i won't but um we're standing in the elevators hotel with our flight suits on and this little lady comes in i know it's all old ladies but this little old lady comes in she looks at both of us and she goes are you guys them top gun guys so jeff said why yes i mean that's jeff nice yeah nice well i'm so glad you had those relationships because i have friends that are struggling with ptsd and i'm trying to figure out is the ptsd from the experiences in the service or does the ptsd kind of come from being separated from that purpose

58:44 driven life and now you're you're out there trying to find something to fill that hole and so what what kind of advice do you have to folks that are just struggling to find that path when they take the uniform off yeah i'm glad you asked that question truthfully um i think the answer could be both it just depends on when you notice that but um for me um you know when i i think i my my first tour in new orleans was i mean i i did some great rescues in new orleans you know it was fun i was 22 20 i was 23 years old 24 years old you'd be pretty more bulletproof you know that thing but then you get married you have kids and everything changes your whole perspective changed but my first tour in kodiak

59:26 because i had two tours um again i flew i flew a lot and i was i flew more and more than anybody just because i was just i would always be the first to raise my hand to go and i love to fly i was just probably an adrenaline junkie i guess i liked adventures but in doing that i flew in some of the worst conditions i've ever flown in my life i never flew anything like that other than that rescue and sitka but you know nighttime pitch black going with no nav aids going through houses no nvgs no nothing you know and just hoping you like had herb feelers out so you hope you didn't hit anything uh and did that all the time and i would be coming back sometimes my knees

1:00:07 were just shaking and i was like oh my god you know i don't know how i was in fact i remember praying going through those mountains and saying oh god just get me through this one more time and i did that more times and i i i think it i think that probably changed me in a way that uh i'll never be the same i would do it again but i'd know i'll never be the same i'm sure you've missed it in your career where you've done had missions where you just like oh god i'm just glad to be back on the ground again and i had more of those in kodiak than than any other other tour i had so fast forward to when i retired nobody actually told me about va benefits i just got

1:00:44 out and the next day i started working my job and it wasn't until 15 years later that um that i saw one of my friends like jeff actually said you should you should get your check on your va benefits and i said i said i'm busy you know but he said no you need to check so i did and and when i was up there in anchorage and going through the american legion assistance office i remember the lady you know talking about back and hearing and all those other things and she says how's your mental health i said it's great no she's not really really how's it it's like knocking on the table like how's your mental health i said it's fine you know and what she's really getting is that you know do you want to talk about ptsd i said no i absolutely don't

1:01:25 want to talk about anything like that i said i'm fine well a couple years later and again and i did uh and the guy said yeah you have all the symptoms of ptsd and i thought what are you talking about so after that is realizing do you actually have a problem you know i mean and i always felt guilty because i had all my fingers and toes you know i'd never been in hospital i'd never you know i was intact physically um i didn't get shot at for one time my whole career so i just thought i don't qualify for the guys who have done that really dangerous stuff but somebody told me me when i got in ptsd you came out different and you went in completely different from

1:02:35 If you've got issues, and they all manifest differently, you know, for me, and it's really when I realized I had a problem, I was testifying in front of a Senate subcommittee in Washington, D.C., in front of Senator Murkowski, and I was explaining to them why this village called King Cove, which is in the last peninsula, needed a road from their village to the nearest airport in Cold Bay, because they didn't have one, so they couldn't do medevacs, or they couldn't drive to a medevac, so the reason I was there is I, the short version is, I went to find a plane crash, and I found four bodies in a plane that were, they pancaked in in the middle of a snowstorm, and they were literally seated in the seats, I mean,

1:03:22 they were frozen in the seated position, so we had to wrench them out of there, stuff them in the back, you know, there were legs and arms and a few spare parts all over the place in the helicopter, and I remember looking back at it and thinking, gosh, I need to compartmentalize this, I've got to get on with it. I've got to do this. I've got a job to do, and so I was now, fast forward about 30 years, I was testifying in the Senate subcommittee, and I got to the part where I was describing looking back at these legs and these arms, you know, all over the place, and there was a spare leg rolling around, because the guy got amputated leg, and I just choked up, and it took me

1:03:54 about, I don't know, 15 seconds to recompose myself, and in fact, I was sitting next to the environmental lady that was protesting this road, and she, I thought she was going to say, hey, you need a Kleenex. She just leaned over and said, that was just so emotional. That was when I knew that, hey, you know, I didn't see that coming. I didn't know it was coming. I bottled it up for 30 years. I compartmentalized it like you do, and in my term in the Coast Guard, if you had an event like that, you just got on with it, you know, you would never think of saying anything to anybody, you know, you're like, don't be a cupcake, you know, just get on with it. And so I encourage people, I just gave a speech or talk the other day at the Coast Guard base

1:04:38 here in Kodiak, and I ended it by saying, you know, if you please, make sure you find a safe space where you can talk to people, you know, and it might not be traumatic, it might be something insignificant, but make sure you're in an environment where you can go and talk to somebody and get help, because, you know, if you had a broken hand, a broken leg, there's a pile of air crew, they're going to send you the doctor because they need you to be home. If you've got something going on with your mental health, don't you think that they've got a ton of money invested in you as an asset? Yeah. You know, the Air Force or the Coast Guard or whoever, why would they throw you out?

1:05:14 Why should they? And the Coast Guard's changing, they actually changed the Air Force manual to now make it not punitive to go seek help. I think, wow, what a great environment. So I truly encourage people to do that, and because you owe it to yourself to do that. That's one of the main reasons why I started Voice for Valor is I'm trying to give veterans a platform for them to be heard and understood. I had a very good friend introduce me to my wife, was a groomsman in my wedding, and he had to take somebody down in the line of duty as a police officer, and he never got over it. We had multiple conversations, and he just couldn't get over it. And so alcoholism eventually led to suicide.

1:06:02 And when he took his life, I finally said to myself, I've got to do this. I've got to provide some sort of platform that people can just share stories. Because every time I share my stories with others, I feel better. I just feel a little bit better, just incrementally better every time I share stories with others that understand. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. So thank you for sharing that. Well, thank you for that opportunity. And it took me a long time. And so I'm hoping that people that hear this, you won't wait so long. Because I was, one, I didn't realize, and two, I didn't feel worthy. Despite all the medals and awards and all other stuff. I wasn't like, I didn't come back and spend six months in Walter Reed.

1:06:48 I didn't. Or any of those other things. I didn't. And I probably felt guilty about saying, well, I don't deserve this. But the fact of the matter is, when you go through these situations, it changes you. And you have a right to get the help you need. And so never, ever be ashamed of it and just, it'll make you a better person. And I'm just glad for the opportunity to talk about that. Well, thank you, John. And before we close, you have seven grandchildren. I do. What are you doing to leave your legacy with them? Well, some of them are too young to care right now. And then I've got some teenagers that are teenagers and they don't care either. But I'm being facetious when I say that.

1:07:35 What I do is I just go out of my way to stay in touch with them. They're all distant. They live on the East Coast. So I just do everything I can to create an environment. Maintain a good relationship with them. And I've got one boy who's 15 or 14, I'll be 15 next. And we're going to go to Normandy together because he's really into military stuff. So I just try to be grandpa. That's what I do. Well, John, thank you so much for sharing those stories with us today. And next time you're in DC, I do want to meet up. And let's continue to talk about DFC and trying to get some of this new blood, these recent recipients into your organization. How's that sound? Hey, let's talk because I'd be more than glad to do it and I'll be there in March, in DC

1:08:24 in March. Perfect. All right. Well, thank you for this opportunity. Thank you so much. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Take care.