This presentation of In Their Own Words is brought to you by the Honor Project and is dedicated to the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. flying low and slow over enemy territory in Vietnam,

forward air controllers, or fax, choreographed the sky over the battlefield.

Typically, they flew in small single-engine, unarmed propeller aircraft like the

Cessna 01 Bird Dog.

The facts were experts at spotting an evasive, well-camplaged enemy,

and they often braved a battery of enemy ground fire to target the opposing force.

In Southeast Asia, a clandestine group of the best forward air controllers known as Ravens, operated mainly in Laos

in a covert attempt to stop the enemy. Just 24 years old, William Platt became a pilot on the

Secret Raven team. From day one, Platt wanted to be part of the action.

Going through pilot training, my flight commander had been a Ford Air Controller.

And when it came time to choose an assignment, he took me aside and told me that this

was probably the best assignment I could ever have. He was right.

So I volunteered for that assignment out of pilot training,

went through survival school, both water survival

and winter survival school, and then jungle survival school

in the Philippines.

Arrived in Cameron Bay, and in the first couple of days they asked if we knew anyone in a unit where we'd like to be assigned.

They gave us a telephone number, and I called the, I guess it was a personnel officer and

just asked him to send me where the action is. He told me he had just the right place for me.

He sent me to FIS Special Forces working out of Pleiku.

And I had two forward air controllers who had been there for many months,

real veterans of combat in the Central Highlands,

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