My publisher wants me to finish a book about Ken I have been working on...I had covered his exploits on the war in Korea and she wants me to include Vietnam.  So.......I dug around in all the stuff I have about the USMC and found letters Ken wrote me from Dec. 66 to Jan 68---the time he was gone.  I hadn’t read them in 55 years and didn’t know if I could.  But I am trying--and it is hard.

There were so many pilots I knew that got hit.  And there were those who were killed, and those that ended up in a prison camp and those that weren’t found for weeks and weeks.

Ken said “I have to take back every bad word I ever said about helicopters.  They are in so much more danger than I am.  They fly low, get targeted and many times hit.  Those of us flying escort take out the VC that are firing at them, but many times its too late.  And if they survive, they do it again and again knowing they are sitting ducks, but they are going in to pick up wounded, stranded and sometimes captured.  God is truly their copilot some days or they couldn’t do it.