When did you meet Mickey?
1971
Where did you meet him?
U.S. Air Force
Memory of Mickey
I arrived at RAF Lakenheath with a terrible headache. I thought I was just jet-lagged, but the headache and confusion increased. A flight surgeon on night call assumed that I was an addicted anesthesiologist needing narcotic without an OR supply. He wrote me off, but Mickey Nardo, covering the next day, also suspicious that I might be needing a “fix”, didn’t write me off. He had the insight to know that I had been at Wichita Falls, Texas for basic training, where equine encephalitis was epidemic at the time. He admitted me to the hospital, where a spinal tap sent to N.I.H. confirmed his diagnosis. It would be fair to say that “Mickey Nardo saved my life.” I will always be grateful to him for his ability to read me well enough to believe that I would not be an addict.