I want to introduce you to an incredible man, Retired Colonel Rick Fields, standing between these two helicopters as a 19-year-old crew chief in Vietnam.

When my husband, Scott, first met Colonel Fields, Scott was a rebellious fifteen-year-old living on his own in the Washington D.C. area. Colonel Fields quickly realized Scott was a wayward teenager in need of a father’s love and discipline. So Colonel Fields did what any man would do, he took Scott into his home and “pumped him full of sunshine,” as Colonel Fields likes to say.

Obviously, I am kidding here. Very few men are willing to adopt a rebellious kid they don’t even know. But Colonel Fields told me, “I used to see Scotty jogging home from football practice. All the other boys got picked up by their folks, but there was Scotty running down the road home after running at practice. When we found out Scotty was living on his own and running home to no one, we knew that boy needed us.”

So Colonel Fields and his family invited Scott to live with them. It was more than just a season of football in Scott’s life, it was a season that changed everything.

“Colonel and Mom Fields saved me,” Scott said. “Without them, I don’t know where I would have ended up.”

When Scott was seventeen, Colonel Fields got orders from the Army to move to Germany. Scott could only go with the Fields if Colonel Fields became his legal guardian, so Colonel Fields took custody of Scott and took him to Europe with the family.

“I badly needed discipline in high school,” Scott said. “Colonel Fields was a battlefield commissioned Vietnam veteran and a great man. I have never respected any man more than I do him. Without Colonel Fields, I wouldn’t have gone to college. I wouldn’t have joined ROTC. And I wouldn’t have become an army aviator like Colonel Fields. I wanted to be like him.”

This is Paula speaking now. I first met Colonel Fields at Scott’s and my wedding. Colonel Fields flew out from Germany and loaned my dad a tie for the ceremony because my dad, a cowboy who lives in jeans and boots on a ranch in the Sutter Buttes, didn’t own a tie. When Scott graduated from Flight School at Fort Rucker in 1991, Colonel Fields was there to pin on Scott’s wings.

He also came to meet his first grandbaby, Cami, born the day before Scott graduated Flight School in Alabama. Colonel Fields helped Scott take Cami’s footprints for the hospital records.

By the following summer, I stayed at Colonel Fields’ Virginia home for a short while with Scott at Ranger School. Colonel Fields was then stationed at the Pentagon. “Scotty has made me so proud,” Colonel Fields told me as he held Cami in his arms one night. “I love you, kids, you’re just like my own flesh and blood. You have a beautiful little girl. Now have some boys too so they can play football for me!”

Colonel Fields played football in college and was a high school football coach for years. He has a football coach’s voice and pours passion into everything he does.

In so many ways, Colonel Fields has been a father to both Scott and me. Now he is Colonel Opa to our kids and he loves flying out from his retirement home in Florida with his dear wife, Marty, to watch our boys play football.

It makes me so incredibly happy to honor Colonel Fields by telling a bit of his amazing Vietnam battlefield commission story in my latest novel, Leaving Lonesome. This novel is a work of fiction but behind the made-up story, there are pieces of Colonel Fields’ real story.

Many soldiers came home after fighting bloody battles in Vietnam to face a backlash of riots and ridicule in their home cities after the war. The condition of America was a lot like it is right now, torn by protests and violence and social unrest.

Today, I want to give honor where honor is due. Vietnam soldiers like Colonel Rick Fields bravely served our country when they were barely more than boys. Colonel Fields deserves to be remembered for exactly what he is: a Vietnam War hero, and an extraordinary dad and grandpa.

Yesterday, I tucked one of my proof books of Leaving Lonesome in the mail for Colonel Fields. I’d hoped to send him the finished book but because of the quarantine, it has taken longer to get the paperback printed. This novel is a Father’s Day gift to one of the greatest fathers in the world. Happy Father’s Day Colonel Opa! We love and admire you beyond measure and we are so grateful you made it home from ‘Nam. We adore you!