What’s the best picture taken of you and why do you think it’s the best?

Posted 24Jul2017.

This has proven to be a bit more challenging than I thought, due to the important stages of my life. However, every picture will have less than 1000 words:

Thin and somewhat smugly confident, this picture captured how I felt in having accomplished several goals in my life within a year: joining the Army to be a 67T (“UH-60 Helicopter Repairer”), getting assigned to the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii (not a goal, but still worthy of pride), going straight from Advanced Individual Training (AIT) to a flight company without spending months waiting for a flight slot and sweeping the hangar floor or whatever details seemed to fill the pre-9/11 garrison life, accidentally placing myself ahead of 13 other former floor sweepers in line for flight training.

Month #14 of training, evaluations, and Medevac support during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I had handed the camera to a crewchief who inadvertently taught me to be firm in my role as an NCO and instructor/evaluator and he managed to catch my tired expression highlighted by the low sun perfectly.

Filling out and worn, this was to be the final year of my flying career due to back problems. I was in the process of evaluating crewmembers during Special Patrol Insertion and Extraction System (SPIES) operations and snapped this rare blind selfie on final. The lowered visor caught the reflection of the “evaluatee” looking down at the training load and my neutral expression as I watched.

My son was less than 20 minutes old, and a friend managed to catch the moment he grabbed my hand for the first time. I realized that I had become a father and the caretaker of his path towards eventually becoming a father himself. A form of immortality through procreation and nurturing…