Alan C. Mack

And what we found out in Saudi Arabia is we did not own the night.

We were, as we joked, leasing it or renting it because everybody was flying into the top of these dunes.

So the dunes in Saudi Arabia, you see them in the movies, Lawrence of Arabia, all this stuff.

They come up, and then they have a second lip.

And with the goggles, you'd see the first lip but not the second one.

And guys were flying into that and ripping off their landing gear.

So they decided to do the big assaults during the day because it was insane, the airspace that we were in.

And had we done it at night, it would not have gone well in hindsight.

Okay.

That was strategic.

Right.

Oh, so anyway, so now when we get back to the States, the Army intends to own the night.

So every exercise we do includes night vision goggle cruise.

And remember I said out of 16, we had six.

Well, I'm one of the six.

So everything we did was, you know, I was at the National Training Center, the Joint Readiness Training Center, other places out over the water, whatever it is, and we got really good at it.

And about the time we did that, I got assigned to Korea again, but as a pilot instead of a mechanic.

And when I was there, I became a night vision goggle unit trainer, which is one level below an instructor pilot.

And I flew the border of North and South Korea back and forth from memory.

So you had to teach people the border.