Okay, so the first encounter with my new boss, I thought, went rather well.

But I still had some issues to deal with. I had an XO who hated me, I was physically too close to the line where the US Army considered me overweight, and with respect to my writing skills, I was still pretty terrible.

For some reason, battalion level stringers wind up getting assigned to S-3 or operations. I think it was because there never was a real MOS or official job description. So, what generally happens is, unless you fight for every inch of your own turf, you wind up being the S-3 gofer.

I needed my first break.

To add to the passion to hit the ground running, The 3rd Infantry Division saw another Edwards from the same family -- namely my father -- who also happened to know a Captain during the Korean War by the name of Pat W. Crizer. The same General Pat W. Crizer who is now the 3rd Infantry Division Commanding Officer.

And yes, I did know the 3rd Infantry song by heart by the time I was 10 years old. Including the stanza that was removed from the song that was deemed "politically incorrect".

So, the first thing on my list of things to do was what we call these days networking.

The 3rd Infantry Division had two publications: FrontLine and Pillars and Posts. I needed to contact the Editor there, let him or her know who I was and then figure out how to get that foot into the door.

As it turned out, the E-6 in charge of FrontLine was also that rifted Captain Major Shielly was telling me about. And by the way, that E-6 was one hell of a good writer. Fiction writer which his work would be published in Army In Europe also known as EurArmy Magazine in a three part series.

Lucky for me, I had already made contact with the editor of Army In Europe Magazine, John Michael Coleman as two images from my photo-lab had been picked for last page winners of a monthly contest. One from one of my photo-lab enthusiasts and the other from me.

I also made contact with the editor of Stars and Stripes -- which would be a contact I would use during REFORGER 77 and REFORGER 78.

Normally, by the way, the Public Information Officer is responsible for the battalion level news releases and any "in house publications" such as a the battalion news letter.

With that in mind, I also had to come up with ways to make every effort work. Create stories that could be standalone stories, photo-features or just images with what we call cut lines -- a picture with a small one sentence blurb about the photograph and image credit.

Wrap all of this together and you have the appetizers of what I had on my plate. LTC Gerald E. Lethcoe had a couple of his own. Army Aviation Magazine was one of them.

As time will tell the rest of the story, working with Hillery Brown of ABC News and David Allan Burnett who was taking images for Time Magazine.

And since I only want to say this once, without LTC Gerald E. Lethcoe's interest and ever pressing drive for making the 3rd Combat Aviation Battalion an integral part of the combined Anti-armor force of Armor and lethal TOW Cobras to be reckoned with and the all out efforts of John Michael Coleman to put up with me and my thirst for learning how to write, I wouldn't have become so visible.

I was told before I left the Army in 1979 by Department Of Defense (DOD), that I came very close to completely revamping the Public Affairs program for DOD. I thought they were trying to impress me so I would go back to Germany and do the same thing I did for another Combat Aviation Battalion located in Nuremberg.

I told them that unless LTC Gerald E. Lethcoe was the Commanding Officer of that unit, or General John M. Brandenburg was the commanding Officer of that division was there would be no way I could pull off what I did over the course of the past 3 years. I didn't want to push my luck. And that was the truth.

There is no way as an enlisted non commissioned officer that I could have pulled off half of the things I pulled off if it hadn't been for LTC Gerald E. Lethcoe. It was a mutual, combined interest and effort.

The problem is, there also has to be a mutual, combined interest and effort on the receiving side of this, too.

At Fort Campbell, KY, it was LTC John AG Klose who was just as eager to help me -- and I might add -- help himself to my services. I can remember him having me take images of General John M. Brandenburg receiving an award from General Sidney Berry because the official photographer who took the image could get the image to him on time to make the next day's newspaper.

Or the time when I went over to the airfield and took a picture of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown because, again, he wanted the image to be in the next day's issue of the Fort Campbell Courier.

Unfortunately, the picture of the Secretary of Defense picture from me never saw daylight in the Fort Campbell Courier because a GS-13 from the AV Department on post caught wind of what we were doing and told LTC Klose that if he published another unofficial image of mine when an official photographer was assigned to taking it, he would write up LTC Klose.

Well, today, the Army really does have a job description and an MOS for it. Here's the Army's job description:

Public Affairs Specialist (46Q)

Enlisted
Officer

Active Duty
Army Reserve
Entry Level

Overview

The Army public affairs specialist participates in and assists with the supervision and administration of Army public affairs programs primarily through news releases, newspaper articles, Web-based material and photographs for use in military and civilian news media.

Job Duties

Research, prepare and disseminate news releases, articles, web-based material and photographs on Army personnel and activities
Gather information for military news programs and publications within your unit and around the Army
Develop ideas for news articles
Arrange and conduct interviews
Write news releases, feature articles and editorials
Conduct media training

Short of the Internet stuff, I guess they were telling me the truth after all.

EVERY TIME YOU GO TO ANOTHER UNIT, ITS LIKE TRYING TO PROVE YOUR WORTHINESS ALL OVER AGAIN.

Especially, if you are a helicopter mechanic suddenly pushed into a highly visible job and on one has any idea what that is. You could be a spy for all they know. Especially, when you report directly to this guy:

And so, there I was, once again putting my neck in the noose and hoping the chair under my feet doesn't get kicked out from under me.

So, I go out on my first assignment and as soon as I do, who do I see whose madder than a wet hen. The one and only Major Shielly. Whom which forces me to sand at attention and salute him. He then walked away.

I spotted LTC Gerald E. Lethcoe coming in for a landing and sitting in the left seat of the Huey and once the Huey stabilized, I stood on the skid and he slid down the window. He then pointed to a button and as I looked down his finger tapped my nose and he laughed.

Okay, I love this guy, he has a wicked sense of humor. "Sir, I don't think this is going to work?"

"Why?"

"Because of Major Shielly."

"Dick, don't worry about him, he's gone."

And he was, I think we sent him down to Brigade as a signal officer.

Knowing I needed to work on my writing, I pushed pictures over to FrontLine with cut lines.

LTC Gerald E. Lethcoe and I worked on this:

On his floor and in his office. Which brings me to another point. Why would an Officer from the 3rd Infantry Division want to put together a montage of images of the 101st Airborne Division?

The answers that come quickly to my mind was it was a political investment. It was a way to pave the way for additional images we would take and make public. We had the only images of the exercise that were publishable.

One thing was for certain, take me or LTC Gerald E. Lethcoe out of this equation and from this point on, publishable content about TOW Missile attack helicopters, combined arms efforts and the stories about the men and women who made all this happen would have turned out to be a blank page in the history of Army Aviation.