"Colonel John and the Giants" began as a personal commission — a song written to honor my college professor, a Vietnam War search-and-rescue pilot whose stories quietly shaped the way I saw courage, teaching, and time.

The track became the emotional and thematic anchor of the album: a mythic transformation of a real man into legend. Through rambling, widescreen storytelling, it chronicles Colonel John's hundred missions over the jungle canopy, flying three green helicopters — the "Giants" — through tracer fire and impossible odds to carry the living home.

But the song isn't just about war. It's about continuity: how the endurance that saves lives in one era can reappear decades later in the patience of a teacher, the steadiness of a mentor, the simple act of showing up.

The Musical Approach

Musically, the piece blends '70s Americana storytelling with cinematic desert rock textures — pedal-steel slides over deep toms, a slow 6/8 sway that mirrors the rhythm of helicopter blades. The arrangement moves between two timeframes:

• The chaos of combat, where Colonel John's calm voice cuts through rotor noise and gravity's pull.
• The quiet authority of a classroom, where chalk dust settles like afterburn and hard-won wisdom passes down like embers.

The refrain — "Take life as it comes" — became both lyric and mantra, bridging those worlds. In the end, Colonel John stands as both historical figure and spiritual guide. His West Texas sky becomes a metaphor for vast endurance — the open horizon you keep flying toward when the world demands your courage.