Combat Control Foundation founding members Mike Lamonica and Mike West join us to discuss some of our military’s most highly trained warriors. The motto of Combat Controllers is “First There” and is derived from World War II when Pathfinders were inserted in advance of other troops in order to provide weather information and visual guidance for inbound aircraft.

Darrell Ahrens recounts some of his adventures as a fighter pilot - some of them quite humrous. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and 13 Air Medals while flying combat in Vietnam.

Wade Hubbard only spent five years in the US Air Force. Duing that time he was awarded FIVE Distinguished Flying Cross Medals, 30 Air Medals and a Purple Heart flying as a "back seater" in an F-4 Phantom.

The P-51 Mustang changed the course of the air war in Europe, but it almost didn’t make it off the assembly line.  The story of the Mustang’s evolution and the pilots that flew it in combat is the subject of a great new book by David & Margaret White titled “ Wings of War; The World War II Fighter Plane That Saved the Allies and the Believers Who Made It Fly.”