Former Black Hawk Pilot Helping Arizona Veterans

Ex-Black Hawk pilot now advises AZ veterans agency 
Arizona Daily Star
By Becky Pallack
October 10, 2015

“Changing the perspective is really what we’re about,” he said. “It’s about seeing veterans not as a problem but as the solution.”

Rustand keeps this drawing of a
helicopter, similar to those he flew, in his office.

Brett Rustand served his country and now spends his free time serving his fellow veterans.

“I don’t know if it was before the military or if the military created it in me, but I know that lots of people — the vast majority of veterans coming out of the service — carry with them a desire to serve,” he said.

Rustand’s first military experience was competing in an ROTC Ranger Challenge competition with his good friend and college roommate, Ben Shaha.

“I realized it was something that I absolutely loved … and so I jumped right in,” Rustand said.

His plan had been to go to law school, but instead he commissioned in the aviation branch of the Army in 1999. He went to flight school at Fort Rucker in Alabama and became a Black Hawk helicopter pilot.
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