{"id":4297,"date":"2017-02-24T17:20:41","date_gmt":"2017-02-25T01:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=4297"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","slug":"175-pescadero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/175-pescadero\/","title":{"rendered":"#175 Pescadero"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Written in mid 2016<\/p>\n

I got an email the other day.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t from anyone I know.\u00a0 In fact, I had to scratch my think-bump for a bit before the light bulb went off over it and I found myself muttering, \u201cWell I\u2019ll be damned\u201d!\u00a0 Because we had met, many years ago\u2026.<\/h3>\n

Not only did I remember the incident, but I still have the clipping from the San Jose paper.<\/h3>\n

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Gary\u2019s email said,<\/h3>\n

\u201cHello Brian. It’s been 46 years since you saved my father and my life out of the ocean near New Years Island. You and Lt Hsu with Donald Winchester dropped right down out of the fog. I remember the port side small window sliding\u00a0open and one of you yelled out…”you boys want a ride?”. There was 5 you saved that morning. 4 adult men and me…12 years old. You flew us to the roof of Santa Cruz Hospital to get checked out. San Jose Mercury News front page next day Sunday read…\u201d Five Plucked from Sea…daring airlift as boat sinks off Pescadero.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

\u00a0My father just passed away at 83. I told the story at his funeral. You could hear a pin drop in the crowded church. My name is Gary (xxxxxx). Retired now and living in No. California in a town called (xxxxxx). Between Sac and Reno. I just wanted to say what I should have said years ago. Thank you for saving my life that cold morning 46 years ago. God Bless. Gary.\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

I think Gary\u2019s email to me says a lot.\u00a0 It reflects so well on him because of his gratitude.\u00a0 It reflects on the decisions that a lot of us made to avoid going to a war we didn\u2019t believe in and to substitute that action with serving our country in a lifesaving service.<\/h3>\n

Honestly, I had little regard for honor when I made that decision so many years ago to join the Coast Guard.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure that my decision was just as much due to my not wanting to die in Viet Nam as it was from any noble desire to help mankind.\u00a0 Maybe it was due to equal parts of each.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 What I do know is that I\u2019m glad that I made that decision.\u00a0 It affected a lot of parts of my life since then.\u00a0 Thousands of others, faced with such a decision, either decided to serve their country in that war or were drafted into the service, regardless of their politics.\u00a0 Many of them never came back.\u00a0 I salute them.\u00a0 The willingness of a country\u2019s citizens to serve that country, regardless of whether the country is right or wrong, must be admired to a certain extent.<\/h3>\n

\u00a0I really didn\u2019t have much to do with this incident\u2026 For me it was more a situation of \u201cright time and right place\u201d, more than being at all competent or heroic\u2026Hsu and Winchester were the pilots and they were great, but the email Gary sent me really made me think about certain coincidences and their effect on our lives.\u00a0 Kwang Ping Hsu is gone, he died after a career in aviation.\u00a0 Don Winchester went on to a very successful career in aviation and is now retired.\u00a0 The HH52 Helicopter we flew was a taildragger\u2026 maybe the handwriting was on the wall for me!<\/h3>\n
A SAR crewman hoists a “victim” into the basket during a drill in a helicopter similar to the one in this article.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

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But if anyone owes anyone, it\u2019s probably that I owe Gary.\u00a0 He validated a decision made so long ago.\u00a0 It seems to have worked out pretty well.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The HH52 Helicopter we flew was a taildragger\u2026 maybe the handwriting was on the wall for me!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[35,40,171,174],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}