Low, slow, reliable. No, I’m not describing yours truly. Those three words were the motto sewed into the shoulder patch of the 18th Army Aviation Company in Vietnam. They flew the low, slow, but reliable Canadian-built U-1A Otter. Jeffrey “Bic” Bickerton spent 14 months in Vietnam as the crew chief of his “Otter,” otherwise designated as “Reliable 713.” And this is his story.
Early childhood: “I was born in Kew Gardens, N.Y., in 1946, one of those illustrious Baby Boomers. When I was 5 years old, my mother came down with polio. She survived for four years inside the infamous iron lung of its era and was the first woman to give birth while confined inside an iron lung. When released to come home, she was confined to a wheel chair for the rest of her life and had very little use of her arms and fingers. She did have use of her right hand fingers and was given one of the first electric typewriters to contribute to the newsletter for the polio patients at the local hospital.”
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