For a variety of reasons, I turned down a regular Air Force commision
and I was separated from the service upon my return from Vietnam. I hadn't really thought
the whole thing through and didn't realize what a large part of my life flying had become.
A tour in Vietnam had that effect on people. As a newly-liberated civilian, I went to work
for a large defense contractor in Massachusetts. I guess it took me about 5 or 10 minutes
to realize why I had left this type of work in the first place. I immediately started
applying to the airlines for a job. My search was rewarded within a year by the offer of a
job at Eastern Airlines. At that time, Colonel Frank Borman, USAF (Ret.) was the president
of Eastern and he was determined to make jobs available to those of us who had paid our
dues in Southeast Asia.
