Dear Garrett..

April 15, 2013

Hey Whale — I’m glad we got to talk this morning.  I am enjoying your book, Razor’s Edge, immensely.  I read the section about me a little earlier today — glad you didn’t call me a dumb ass for not keeping CPT Tom Wilson from killing himself.  If it happened again, I’d be all the more wiser.  Picture yourself standing on a curb next to a friend and all of a sudden with no warning he darts out in front of a bus and gets killed.  It was like that — completely unexpected.  When you go over what happened in your mind, you wish you had known what he was thinking and going to do so you could have stopped him.  I blamed myself for what happened and turned against myself.  I lost close to 30 pounds over the next month — couldn’t eat or sleep, etc.  I still flew my missions — I dry heaved a lot.  It still gets to me — I buried it real deep because it was more than I knew how to handle.  I see it’s still buried and unresolved — your book is showing me that.

More later…Mark

Dear Whale,

I’ve read your book, “A Razor’s Edge” and wrote this review for Amazon.com:

               “A Razor’s Edge” by Robert Boyd – Book Recommendation

May 4, 2013

Amazon.com

If a cat has 9 lives, the Whale (Robert Boyd) must have 99 — or more!

Whale, I have enjoyed reading your book, A Razor’s Edge, immensely! You write really well! I like the formatting and sequencing of your stories and how you’ve handled the table of contents. Your writing has inspired me for my own writing. I’m glad you had it published for Kindle — it makes reading more fun and comfortable. I take my Kindle with me everywhere. It’s like carrying an entire library around with me — your book included.

Some people are more gutsy that others. They say that the fearless die early — somehow, with your stout heart, you managed to make it to senior citizen status — truly amazing!

One of my closest encounters with death during my service in Vietnam was truly that vodka chugging contest you talked me into in an EM’s hootch. I remember that it took me only a few minutes to end up on the floor after two serious chugs. They said someone found me in the ditch outside the hootch and put me in my bunk. I woke up the next morning with crust on my chest and as sick as I’d ever been. I couldn’t fly for three nights for accepting your dare. Actually, I don’t think you chugged at all — just acted like it?

Yes, we were hootch mates — and you checked me out In Country. We flew two missions together in Vietnam and Cambodia when I arrived in the 73rd SAC at Long Thanh North. Consequently, I can certify that this book is not a work of fiction.

I refer your book to friends a lot. It helps a lot with showing them what serving as an Army Aviator and Mohawk Pilot was like in Vietnam. I refer your book to our flight students for their training in Aeronautical Decision Making.

I’m proud to know you, Whale — thanks for writing the book.

Mark Wilson, CW2
Uptight21
www.flyifr.com
www.DearGarrett.com

PS: The landing with CPT Wilson was OCT 16 or 17, 1970 on a foamed runway at Bien Hoa at 0200 hours. His death radically redefined my life. When he died physically, I died emotionally — when he went to Heaven, I descended into hell. Tears fill my eyes as I write this PS note. Thanks again, Whale…