Donald W. Heckert (LtCol. USAF Retired) was born on 20 July 1945 at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. He is a Command Pilot with over 7,000 hours of flight time in over 30 different types of aircraft, with more than 100 combat missions in the RF-4C and U-2R over Viet Nam and the Middle East. He flew the U-2R / TR-1 operationally for 11 years. These are his stories.