“You know the homeless people you see downtown how about half of them are Vietnam War Veterans?” Art Bickley sincerely asks. “Well that would have been me if it wasn’t for my wife and my mother and father in law.”
Enlisted in 1965, Art Bickley was as an Airman First Class airplane mechanic crew chief on an AC-47 gunship at Bhin Thuy Air Force Base. There he worked 12 to 18 hour days to prepare and repair airplanes to fly missions. At 20-years-old, he was known as “Pops” to his crew.