Former Top Gun Pilot on Hallucinogens, PTSD & the Abyss

Brian "Ponch" Rivera's 28-year U.S. Navy career as a F-14 Top Gun aviator is one marked by exceptional leadership and operational expertise. But it wasn't without tremendous sacrifice. He opens in the cockpit on a 2001 training mission over the Bay of Bengal, with the roommate he swapped seats with, who never came back. Through his emotional retelling, Rivera explains how, in a complex adaptive system, you can make all the right decisions, have all the right hedges on, and still end up ...