"Without that guardian angel, I'd have been dead." (Video Interview, 38:18)

Gerald Charles Green

Gerald Green [detail from video] War: Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Branch: Army Unit: 175th Assault Helicopter Company (AHC) Service Location: St. Louis, Missouri; Vietnam; Korea; Texas; Georgia; Alabama; Massachusetts; Arizona Rank: Colonel Place of Birth: IA

Flying daily missions in Vietnam, Gerald Green lost 32 pounds during his first tour of duty, between May 1968 and May 1969. It wasn't just the flying; Green was responsible to the unit commander for over 130 other men, and he lost a brother in combat during that tour. His closest brush with death came not in the air, but on the ground when he evacuated his bunk just before a shell hit his quarters and decimated the area in which he'd been resting. For Green, the complications of flying a helicopter were made easier by the fact that he was ambidextrous.