Everyone was given the opportunity to say a few words appropriate for the occasion, Veterans Day. Whoever planned to speak had to time him/or herself to the passing trains. The platform at the Historic Railroad Park was directly adjacent to the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks, and every ten or fifteen minutes a train would be approaching, usually with a few short blasts on the horn, The person at the podium would wait until the train had passed. The trains are pretty long, usually 3 or 4 engines up front, 100 to 110 railroad cars, and another 1 or 2 engines in the back. In this picture Jim, my friend who had invited me to come to Willcox, said a few words. Jim is a local, he is well liked and respected and he has served 31 years in the Marine Corps, 21 of those years in Force Recon. When I first met him at the gym at Luke AFB, it took a while before we started talking. But we found out that both of us had been been in Vietnam at about the same time (he served three tours). Alright, we had something in common. Then one day I said that I liked Hueys (the Bell UH-1 'Iroquois' helicopter) and he said 'I don't'. I didn't understand, why not. Hueys were used to insert and extract troops, and they make noise approaching and hovering, and that attracts the bad guys, and they shoot. Something I never thought about Sometimes later, I introduced another guy I had met at the gym to Jim. This other guy had flown helicopters as a Marine Corps officer for eight years and is currently flying Black Hawks (UH-60) for the Arizona Army National Guard and has spent two tours in Iraq. In his civilian job he is a Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter pilot. A guy not easily impressed, but when I introduced him to Jim his hand snapped out to shake Jim's hand,with the words 'An honor to meet you' and that from an officer. I didn't know what I witnessed. So one day I asked Jim how exactly did he become what he did and what was required to do it. The first thing he pointed out was that he went 13 weeks, not 12 weeks as they do now, to MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) San Diego, CA. All Marine recruits that live west of the Mississippi River have their boot camp at MCRD at San Diego, all that live east of the Mississippi River go to MCRD Parris Island, SC. After 13 (now 12) weeks all recruits will have done at least two 25 mile hikes with 100 pounds of gear, and all will know how to shoot. To qualify for Force Recon one must complete the following requirements: 1. Seal School. Seal School training has been on TV to show the public how difficult it is to qualify, and the high washout rate. When we discussed the program shown on TV, Jim said, quote 'You will never see anything about us on TV, and that's the way we like it', end quote. 2. Jump school. All Army Rangers and Airborne troops must be 'jump qualified', i.e. make five jumps to earn their jump wings. 3. HALO. HALO stands for High Altitude, Low Opening. Troops jump from aircraft from an altitude of 30,000-ft or so wearing a special suit, oxygen mask, altimeter, compass, and anything else that is required. They free-fall to a low altitude before opening their chutes. HALO operations are covert operations, usually conducted at night. 4. Sniper School. Sniper teams are usually a two-men team. The senior, the more experienced of the two, the spotter, determines how the weapon needs to be set up, depending on the distance, local conditions, i.e. sun, wind, barometric pressure, elevation etc. 5. Jungle Warfare School. They learn how to operate under adverse condition in enemy territory. Once he let slip a few stories I realized that I had no clue what was going on over there (meaning SEA) and when I told him that 'I was blissfully unaware of what people like him did', he got the biggest charge out of it, and after that I couldn't do any wrong. My job as a Life Support Specialist (AFSC 992) was to make sure that the pilots had what they needed in case they lost an engine or got shot down, but Jim acknowledge that F-4 'Phantoms' looked awfully good when they showed up and provided fire support. Anyway, all this rambling is to show what some of the troops did over there, but anyone that has served realized once one was in the service one did what one was told to do, and it didn't matter whether one was in the Air Force, Navy Army, Marine Corps and later even the Coast Guard. This picture was taken on 11 November 2017, Sig..