Retired Army major and Air America pilot Bob Caron recalls his storied career in Southeast Asia, beginning with flying Chinooks for the Army’s 147th Assault Support Helicopter Company (ASHC) at Vung Tau (1965-1966), he flew  VIPs (“I flew Charlton Heston in the Beaver,” although Chuck Connors and Henry Fonda were his favorite passengers) for MACV Flight Detachment (1966-1967), and then  left the Army to fly for Air America, first in Saigon (1967-1968), then Thailand (1968- 1973), and finally back to Saigon (1973-75), culminating as the pilot of the helicopter featured in one the most iconic images of the fall of Saigon, the rooftop evacuation from the Pittman Building on April 29, 1975. Caron, commissioned out of West Point, class of ’56, was dual-qualified in airplanes and helicopters, Caribous, Chinooks, and Hueys. Not by choice, he was first assigned to Chinooks, which he grew to appreciate. He recounts flying the TACAN to Lima Site 85 as a sling-load under a Chinook, two years before the Air Force had the heavy lift Jolly Green Giants. He describes the mission as a miracle, 700 miles, mostly across enemy territory, and “I don't think we got one caution light the whole cotton-picking time.” He regards that journey as far more impressive than “my rooftop thing.”