When Ken took command of the squadron, he had served almost eighteen years in the Marine Corps.  You can retire when you have served twenty years, although many Marines stay in.  But Ken's desire was to fly, and his dream had been to command a squadron, which if you are lucky will last two years.  After you have achieved that level, most of the jobs are desk jobs.  Not exactly what he signed up for.

By that time, Vietnam was a reality and many of the dozens of young men he had trained had already shipped out.  And some of them had already been shot down.  Ken agonized over not having the allocations to buy more JP6 (jet fuel) so that he could give them more time in the air before they went to war.  But Congress didn't allocate the money to buy more jet fuel.  It was what it was.  You got a certain number of training hops and then you were gone.

No one is ready to be shot at.  Experienced or not.  The odds of flying a hundred missions while being targeted are not good.   That was the thought in my mind when Ken got orders.  He had served nineteen and a half years when he got his orders to Vietnam.  Six months shy of retirement.  And a tour in Vietnam was a year.  Obviously he wasn't going to get to retire for a while.

We didn't talk about it.  What would be the point.  He was going.  My job was to start packing.  You just have to trust God, one way or another, and figure that he has a plan for our lives.

 Psalms 91: 10a-12  "There shall no evil befall you…for he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.  They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone (or a surface to air missile--my interpretation)."

Psalms 119: 116  "Uphold me according to your word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope."

Hope.  A person can live on hope.