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Hello again, everyone. Welcome back to software for radio on time on target. I'm your host this afternoon Steve Valser.

We have a very special guest with us on the line.

He just came up with a book. His name is Mike Leonard. He was a pilot in the Air Force. He was a fact pilot in Vietnam.

I think, you know, once you hear his story, our listeners are going to love hearing about Mike, what he did in the Air Force, some of the stories he has to relate.

It was a really, really interesting book. I encourage all of our listeners to check that out and download it.

But before we get into all that stuff and we'll, you know, inform our listeners and readers where they can find that later on in the podcast. But before we do that, we want to welcome Mike to the podcast Mike. Welcome to software for radio. Thanks for taking the time this afternoon. We really appreciate it.

Steve, you were more than welcome. I'm just pleased this bunch can be to be here and looking forward to our little discussion.

Yeah, you know, I think there was a, there's an old Chinese proverb. I think it's kind of a curse. I think when it says, may you live in interesting times.

And I think you could say your life was very up to this point. I'm sure you're not done living yet. But I think that you've lived through some pretty interesting time.

You know, that's so true. I think I used that little quote in my book somewhere. And that was it. May you live in interesting times.

And if you think about it, you know, you go through life. There's three things in life. You know that you're born. You live and then you die. And so you can't control the first one of the last one.

But you can control everything in between in the life phase. And I'll tell you something right now. You want to pack into that life phase is much interesting stuff and do as many things and meet as many great people as you possibly can. That's what life's all about.

That's it. And I think you did that. I mean, reading the book, it was like every page was something else. And, you know, early in your life, you talked about how you, you know, you grew up in your family and, you know, your grandmother was actually traveling for a while with a circus, which was like really interesting.

And then yourself, you, you took Mary Fran from the Bob Newhart show to your college prom, which I was, you know, I'll have to say, I'm dating myself there, but I was quite jealous of that.

Well, well, thanks. Well, her name was God lever. You know, she's passed away now, but her name is Mary Fran Luki. And she was a St. Louis, Corona.

I think she was one of the first teenage Miss Americas or something like that. But at the time, she was just one of the young ladies that we dated.

And yeah, and I took her to my college prom. I remember she, she came up, came up on a train. And we picked her up. And, you know, of course, it was all very much by protocol on those days when you're, you know, coating tie in the whole nine yards. So, but she was great gal, great gal.

Yeah. Yeah. And she was fantastic on that Bob Newhart show. I love, you know, I thought when I heard he was coming out with that second show, I was like, he can never beat that first show that he had. I think he did with that one. And she was a big.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, fill our listeners in a little bit about how you came to become a Air Force officer and a little bit about your military career and, and we'll go from there.

Okay. So let me just jump it right into it there, Steven. I'll tell you, it's, it's funny because so I wrote the book. And of course, some of the highlights of the book that kind of the high points or some of the things that occurred in Vietnam.

In order to write a book, you have to have this starting point. Who are, who is this guy? You know, what, how did he get to where he is now? So, yeah, I mean, I grew up in St. Louis. And, and I went off to college there at Kansas.

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