A Navy pilot who saved a fellow aviator from the infamous 'Hanoi Hilton' recounts the week that...

Chuck Sweeney left the Navy as a commander in 1980, after a 22-year pilot career that included 200 combat missions, 4,334 flight hours, and 757 carrier landings.

In one week of that career, Sweeney earned three Distinguished Flying Crosses, awarded for "heroism or extraordinary achievement in aerial flight," for his actions over Vietnam.

Sweeney, president of the national Distinguished Flying Cross Society, spoke with Insider about the unusual way he got his start as a carrier pilot, his time fighting in Vietnam, and the week he was awarded three DFCs in September 1972.

Despite his awards, "I'm no different than most other people," Sweeney said in the 2017 documentary "Distinguished Wings over Vietnam."

"I just happened to be at the right place at the wrong time."