## The ***Old Chief*** My name is Daniel. I'm a spiritual wanderer often straying off the beaten path. I spent 23 years in the military in both the US Air Force (8 years) as an enlisted guy translating Russian, sitting in the back of C-130 cargo planes, and then another 15 years in the US Army sitting in the front of UH1H *Huey* helicopters and then UH60 *Blackhawks*. I have literally lived all over the world. Starting out USAF training in San Antonio, Texas, then subsequent assignments in San Angelo, Texas, then Tucson, Arizona, and then Germany before hanging up my active duty Air Force hat to do a short stint as a Reservist while finishing my bachelor's degree at Arizona State University. While finishing my studies i decided that since the Air Force didn't want me as a pilot I'd go for the weeds and fly NOE (Nap of the Earth) as an Army Helicopter Pilot, which took me to Fort Rucker, Alabama, then Fort Lewis, Washington, then South Korea, then California, then back to Asia this time to Japan, and then retired at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. After retirement I flew as an HEMS (Helicopter EMS) pilot in Northern Arizona, flying for the hospital there, and then decided that I needed to trade the cool climate of Flagstaff for a not so cool climate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where I still am. ## US Army rank Why the *Old Chief*? In the US Army the majority of aviators (as we pompous asses like to refer to ourselves) are warrant officers. We like to think of ourselves as above the rules of regular Army things such as PT (Physical Training) formations. Usually around the time when you'd find a PT formation at 0630 in an open field on any Army base in the world, you can find us (hah- good luck finding us) wandering around the flight line with a massive cup of coffee looking for problems the commander doesn't know he has yet. Yes, safe to say, we warrant officers have built quite a personality cult (self-imposed) around our fragile aviator egos. But, we're not all that bad. But, never trust the following things: 1. A private who tells you how things are done prefacing his statement with 'in basic training they taught us....' 2. An NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) who says 'I have an idea' 3. A 2nd Lieutenant who says 'In my experience' 4. Lastly, a CW4 (Chief Warrant Officer 4) who says 'watch this' ## Who else am I? I'm not just a pilot/aviator. I'm also a father and grandfather and brother and son and uncle and all the beauty that goes with those titles. I have lived a wonderful life and as Robert Frost has eloquently put it *I have miles to go before I sleep*. ## My interests and hobbies I have many interests and pastimes and hobbies, or whatever you want to call them. I love music, sketching here and there, photography, and creating chaos in my own life. Fixing problems I don't know I have, and/or creating problems I don't know how to fix. Recently, I became interested in computer things and have taken quite a liking to ChatGPT to help me learn things I never understood, including making a website. I can assure you, that although I am quite a heavy user of AI, my content here is my own. Spelling and grammar mistakes and all. They're all mine. If you don't understand something I write, either I don't want you to understand, or perhaps I don't understand it myself. The mistakes are mine, and I own them.