Alan C. Mack

And I really had two jobs that were interesting.

One was the chief of the aviation shoot down assessment team, which is,

kind of like the NTSB, but for the Army.

So if somebody gets shot down, they send a team, they investigate the wreckage, they try to figure out what shot them down.

It was the next best thing.

But then I got offered to be the flight detachment commander at West Point.

So that's essentially a VIP mission.

You're flying the general around, you know, superintendent to, you know, college campuses.

The Pentagon's his big thing, you know.

And the skydiving team.

Which turned out to be critical for me.

Right, right.

What I find interesting for this with the people that have trouble reintegrating is I consider the West Point assignment an off-ramp.

It was, if I had just stopped being a flight lead, like just, okay, no more, I don't know how well I would have done.

Not well at all, I don't think.

But I went to West Point.

As the commander, I had enough responsibility to kind of keep me on my toes, but yet it wasn't the same kind of life or death decisions I was making.

And I met the cadets, the jump team.

My very first mission as the commander, we got to West Point, we land, you do the season beginning safety brief, and all these two seniors come up to me, the firsties.

And I'm like, hey, sir, we've heard all about you.