“Close Calls, And Other Neat Stories,” is a series of short vignettes recalled from a military career spanning twenty five years, three wars and a revolution. The first three of those years were as an infantryman with the United States Marines; the second twenty two as a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. Most of the thirty-four chapters in the book deal with tense situations that could have just as easily gone badly as not. The “Other Neat Stories” are too compelling not to include them in book that is as close to a memoir as I will ever write. An old fighter pilot once said: “There are old fighter pilots, and bold fighter pilots, but there are no old, bold fighter pilots. An older, perhaps wiser aviator told me he’d rather be lucky than smart. Guess I’m just lucky.