Mike Durant

The unit had been in Grenada, the 160th.

And that was their baptism by fire.

But SOCOM hadn't been formed yet.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

All right.

So we do all that.

And then not shortly after that, this incredible guy named Cliff Walcott sort of enters my world.

Cliff was a Cobra guy that had been in the unit a little bit longer than me.

And he had this idea where he wanted to turn our Blackhawks into attack helicopters.

And any other place in the world, they would have said, you know, go have your fantasy somewhere else.

Meanwhile, just go do your job.

But it was the 160th, and he had an ability to convince people of things that I could never do.

We used to say he could sell coolers to Eskimos.

I mean, he was... It makes perfect sense, but...

That's a leap.

I mean, to create a new, this is a dramatically different mission, training, capability, and it's coming from the ground up, right?

And I was in the right place at the right time.

I was pretty good at what I did.

He and I got along, and I kind of became his, not necessarily his right-hand man, but pretty darn close.