Please help me find a path to reach my goals. Any advice is needed, and welcome!

Thanks for the replies everyone. So I guess I am leaning towards Tyson. They don't pay as much as US Express on a CPM basis, but I guess I am hoping that with their own freight we could get more miles. Any thoughts on that? It seems that Tyson may have more respect than US Express as well, or is that just in my head?

As far as my plans for rotary wing, I have spent the last several years researching as well as having several friends that are civilian helicopter pilots as well as coming from Army Aviation so I do feel like I would be going into the industry well informed. The concern of breaking into the industry with little experience is a real one, and the key there is to go to a flight school that is likely to give you a job as a flight instructor upon finishing your ratings. At that point I would plan on building my flight time until I had enough time to move into the Gulf of Mexico or one of the tour operations, which is typically around 1000-1500 hours. Luckily, all of my work experience with the exception of trucking is in aviation so I think that will help me a lot.

I think another thing on my side as far as the military vs civilian concern is that the military does not build near as much flight time as people think during their careers in the military. Not only that, but a lot of them do not have plans of flying outside of the military. This of course is only coming from my experience in Army aviation. Most of the pilots that I knew that were getting out did not even have enough flight time to move on to decent paying careers either.

At the same time, a am not unrealistic or naive, I know that it is a hard career path, but what if every current non-military helicopter pilot had decided not to pursue their current careers because it has a hard industry to break into? A lot of times I can be too much of an idealist, but in my opinion there are only two facts in life, you are born and you are going to die. What you do in between those two events is up to you. So I guess I am saying that taking things too seriously doesn't seem like wisdom to me, I think the real wisdom is in having the guts to go after your ideals and dreams.

And as Warren Buffet said, [h=1]“There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn't that a little like saving up sex for your old age?”[/h]Thanks again everyone.