The Sky Behind Me: A Memoir of Flying & Life

In The Sky Behind Me, a Memoir of Flying and Life the author overcomes a childhood setback to find a career in aviation, a position that allows him to soar. The author’s childhood aim is to be a Catholic priest. Abused by a member of the clergy, he is dismissed from the seminary. Drafted out of college in 1969, he enters Army helicopter flight school and serves in Vietnam. After the war he finds work in commercial aviation where his compassion, humor and skill converge for a marvelous career. With a helicopter, he herds bears in Alaska, flies VIPs in Ohio, counts power poles, hovers across O’Hare airport at rush hour, reports news and traffic in several midwestern cities, rescues more than 3,000 medical patients in Iowa and winds up his career flying tourists around the island of Kauai. The Sky Behind Me is rich with human stories, tales of loss, fear, insight and surprise, tragedy and triumph from the unique perspective of more than 12,000 hours in a helicopter cockpit.