Commissioned through ROTC and dual rated both in fixed wing (jets) and helicopters, Russ Cayler remembers volunteering for service in Southeast Asia and arriving in Thailand, which he found most exotic having never traveled much outside of Iowa. He flew the first HH-53 Super Jolly Green Giants in the theater, and recounts participating in both the first non-combat HH-53 rescue mission following a midair collision of friendly jets over Thailand, and the first HH-53 combat rescue mission, which involved a downed Air America helicopter near the China-Laos border. Cayler recalls with some amusement his whole squadron buying Western gun belts for their pistols because the Air Force survival gear was “useless.” And he tells some harrowing rescue stories involving bad weather, both engines failing, autorotating, and using a dead enemy soldier as a hover reference during the famous Lima Site 85 rescue.