A Great American

Hi All,
Jer here.  Crystal has a wonderful onboard enrichment program.  Each sea day there are three lectures by experts on many subjects.  One of the guest lecturers on this segment of the cruise is retired USAF Col Leo Thorsness.  Leo is a Medal of Honor recipient and a 6 year Vietnam POW.  Leo was shot down on his 92nd mission, just shy of the 100 missions he needed to complete his tour.  He was awarded the MOH for actions on his 82nd mission.  For his protection, the Air Force did not announce the MOH award while Leo was a POW.  Today he gave the second of his three lectures.  The first two have focused on his experience as a POW.  Believe it or not, today he talked about “POW lessons and humor.”  Yes, even under those horrific conditions, POWs found some things to laugh about.  BTW, Leo is a very funny guy and had his audience in stitches.  He said a good day is when "the door knob is on the inside."  It was an honor to have my picture taken with Leo.  We were fighter pilots in Vietnam at the same time, so we had lots to talk about.  Luckily for me, my experiences were much different than Leo’s.

Leo was very kind to give me his Medal of Honor challenge coin.  To say I will always value this is a huge understatement.

Leo is giving one more lecture where he will talk about Medal of Honor history.
Jer