Ep 16 | He Flew Into War. His Last Battle Was the Hardest | With Kristen Rider

Colonel Ray Ryder flew F-16s, survived Vietnam, graduated top of his class at the Air Force's elite Fighter Weapons School — the real-life equivalent of Top Gun — and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, the United States' premier decoration for extraordinary achievement in aerial flight. He served his country for 30 years. Then Alzheimer's disease tried to take the rest.

In this episode, Kristen Rider honours her father — a man whose brilliance wasn't just found in a cockpit over Vietnam, but in the way he returned a shopping trolley, anticipated what the person next to him needed, and held everyone around him to a standard rooted in love, not fear.

Kristen shares what it was like growing up as a military child across three continents, the quiet devastation of watching a high-performing man fight a disease that robbed him of himself, and how losing her parents within years of each other led her to spend 12 years working alongside the Alzheimer's Association.

This is a story about service in its fullest sense — the kind that shows up in war, in marriage, in parenthood, and in a car park where everyone else has walked away.

Alzheimer's resources: 🇺🇸 USA: alz.org 🇬🇧 UK: alzheimers.org.uk