Hello, friends, Mike Rowe here with greetings and salutations, this is the way I heard it, the only podcast for The Curious Mind with a short attention span you have found Episode 161. This one's called excess baggage. Excess Baggage. You got any? I bet you do. We all do. Many of us, many of us have found ourselves more than once checking onto a flight, only to be told no. Sorry, sir. Sorry, ma'am.

Your baggage is excessive. You're not carrying that on. More and more, it seems the airlines are cracking down on excess baggage. Maybe the baggage you're thinking of when I say excessive refers to the stuff in your attic or your basement or your garage or maybe up there in your noggin, maybe it's emotional baggage. Many of us walking around with excessive emotional concerns here of late, it seems.

I think I think the thing that was on my mind when I wrote the story was the the middle one, the stuff that accumulates in the nooks and crannies of our homes. I remember living in Westchester, Pennsylvania, back in 1992. I was working for QVC and living in a big old house with lots of extra room, which means I accumulated lots of extra stuff, stuff I really didn't need and stuff that was ultimately contributing to a growing sense of anxiety and restlessness.

I think I had a panic attack one evening when I was just feeling trapped. You know, I came home from a late night. I'd left the television on and I heard a voice in the other room. It was Tony Robbins giving one of his motivational speeches. He was all wound up. I don't know what he was going on about, but I walked in just in time to hear him say. And that's why the more things you own, the more things on you.

And I thought, well, isn't that profound? I don't know if he made that up or if he was quoting somebody, but I took it to heart. And then next weekend I had a yard sale, sold everything I could, gave the rest of it away, quit my job and spent the next ten years working in my chosen field. But freelancing, wandering, wandering the earth like cane in kung fu. With little more than a knapsack and a single bag, it was a time in my life when I had no excess baggage and it felt great today, of course.

Now, here I am again, got a house, got some room, got some stuff I probably don't need some excessive stuff. What about you? That's the question to ponder as you listen to the story I'm about to share, which is preceded by another story, a short tale with a happy ending starring Christina Rambaldi. Do you know Christina? Well, Christina lost her job during covid-19. So you know what she did? She created a profile on Zipp recruiter.

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No excessive baggage there. Everything you need and nothing you don't, this is the way I heard it. The war in Vietnam is coming to an end. America is a country in retreat and once again, Lieutenant Colonel Gene Boyer is strapped into a helicopter getting shot at pop, pop, pop. It never sounds like it does in the movies, Gene thinks. And he would know with two distinguished flying crosses, a Bronze Star and a Legion of Merit, Gene Boyer is the personification of courage under fire.

But this flight is different this time. Victory is not an option as the whole country looks on watching in disbelief as the evacuees crowd into the back of his V three seeking pop, pop, pop off to the side, Jane can see the morning sun gleaming off the barrels as the shooters reload behind him, more people climb into the Big Bird.

Some weep and Jeanne feels their pain. They're leaving home forever. Better than the alternative. But still, the tragedy of the moment is a palpable thing. So, too, is the plight of those about to be left behind, because this is the last flight out, the final piece of a full blown retreat moments before a complete and total collapse. Pop, pop, pop. Jeanne keeps his eyes on the crew chief and waits for the wheels up signal.

He's distracted, however, not only by the shooting, but by the sight of one particular evacuee slowly climbing aboard. This man doesn't look beaten, nor does he appear resigned. In fact, this man turns to face his enemies, raises both arms and extends the middle fingers of each hand. And a defiant gesture that needs no translation then or now.

Pop, pop, pop. Has impressed the balls on this guy to stand there in the line of fire, smiling, no less daring his enemies to take their best shot. Incredible. Finally, the last evacuee enters the overloaded helicopter. The crew chief gives the wheels up signal and Jeanne Boyer waste no time. He pulls back on the stick gently and works the pedals at his feet. Slowly, the mighty beast begins to hover and then lumbered towards the tree line one hundred yards away.

But then something goes wrong, a sudden lurch and unexpected spin, a terrible groaning sound that makes Jean's heart skip a beat as the rear of the chopper dips back toward the ground. Too much baggage, yells Jean. Too much goddamn baggage. Unbeknownst to Jean, the evacuees had come out early that morning and loaded their possessions into his cargo hold, too many possessions, as it turns out now, it's Jean who's in danger of flipping the bird.

But Lieutenant Colonel Jean Boyer does not panic. He simply does what he's done countless times over the battlefields of Korea and Vietnam. He pulls back on the controls and shifts thrust to the rear. The groaning intensifies and the airframe shudders. But slowly, the Big Bird begins to write itself as the evacuees sit silently behind him, white with fear. One hundred yards up in the air, Jean can no longer hear the shots. But down on the ground he can see the late morning sun glinting off the barrels, the barrels of their many lenses.

There's Bob Schieffer from CBS Pop, Bill Pierce from Life magazine. Pop up even a young Annie Leibovitz from Rolling Stone, a pop pop up cameras that never sound like they do in the movies. And they rarely capture the truth of the moment, not the whole truth anyway. Because if you look back at the many photographs taken on that fateful morning, you won't find any photographic evidence of that terrifying near miss. And if you listen to the sound on the video, you won't hear the dreadful groaning that followed the takeoff on that historic flight.

Thanks to Jean, skill in the cockpit, history has forgotten just how close that final flight came to ending a disaster and just how close the country came to enduring another national embarrassment. What we remember instead is that one final gesture captured for posterity on that fateful day in countless photographs pop up.

You know, the gesture, arms outstretched, middle fingers extended, tall and proud right next to the index fingers, which were also extended and splayed alongside a defiant gesture that needed no translation then or now. And so, with a double V for victory, Jean Boyer's notorious passenger told his enemies in the press corps precisely what he thought of them before leaving the White House lawn for the last time in the back of a van three seeking they called Army one, the presidential helicopter, a very big bird, dangerously overloaded on that particular day with the weight of a doomed administration and the excess baggage of Washington D.c.'s most famous evacuee.

Richard Nixon. Anyway, that's the way I heard it.