I would guess that he's in his early to mid seventies, but he doesn't quite look it. He's a Vietnam war veteran with a Purple Heart. He knows how to pilot a helicopter. And he tells the best damn stories when we have nothing else to do in class. Which is fairly often.
He told us about how he got shot in the lower back and how that bullet is still embedded in his hip bone. And how he got hit by a shrapnel and still has that metal in his right arm. The same shrapnel hit just above his eye and sliced his eyebrow so that the skin was hanging over his eye. The medic thought that he had actually lost his eye, so the dude was freaking out. He went to give Mr. M morphine, but he's allergic to morphine and the medic hadn't any other anesthetics. So, Mr. M told him to do it without the morphine. The medic was shaking and flinching at every stitch at the eyebrow, so Mr. M grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down close and growled, "Let me worry about the pain. You do your job."
He also tells ghost stories and UFO stories and stories about the hidden burial ground of Mexican soldiers in the mountains of Southern California that he once tried to find.
Probably my favourite story he's told is one about the Bermuda Triangle.
He has a friend in the air force who was once on the coast of Florida directing three jet planes in from the Atlantic. And they happened to cross through the Bermuda Triangle. Well, while doing so, one of the three disappeared. Just like that. Right off the radar. The other two pilots and the control tower tried calling him over and over again, but they got no response.
So, ten minutes later, the guy suddenly reappears. And Mr. M's friend says, "Where the hell were you? Why didn't you answer? I've been calling you for the past ten minutes!"
And the pilot says, "I've been right here the whole time. What are you talking about? You didn't call me. I was just talking to you a moment ago."
Mr. M's friend then checks his watch and tells the rest of the control tower and the other two pilots to do the same. I'm not sure of the exact time, but let's say it was 3:00 PM. And all of their clocks read 3:00. When the third pilot was asked what his clock read, he said it was 2:50.
MOTHER. FUCKIN'. TIME TRAVEL.
Maybe the Bermuda Triangle is a lost TARDIS malfunctioning at the bottom of the ocean.
