The Sky Behind Me: A Memoir of Flying & Life is aviation memoir, and much more. It's about life balance, resilience, grace and the necessity we all feel to take off again regardless of how hard we crash. The author had a childhood dream of the missionary priesthood. After abuse in a Catholic seminary at age fourteen he was dismissed, his dream taken away. Then he was drafted out of college at the height of the war in Vietnam, entered flight school and served for a year in the war. The irony is rich: He'd dreamed of anointment to the priesthood, then a posting to an exotic land where he would meet people who needed his help, and serve them. Instead, he was anointed a Warrant Officer in the Army, sent to an exotic land where he looked for those same people and assisted in killing them. The Sky Behind Me is a true lemons into lemonade story of one man's resolve to use his skills as a pilot to fulfill the altruistic impulses of his childhood, and succeeds beyond his wildest imaginings.