Veteran reporter Richard Pyle retired today after 49 years at the Associated Press. The Huffington Post's Dana Kennedy got an interview with Pyle, and helped him look back his almost 50-year career -- spent at only one company.

Read the whole interview for the entire experience, but here are some of Pyle's best insights:

"I've been very lucky. The second half of the 20th century was the golden age of journalism. The cutoff point was 9-11. Everything's changed since then. It was the heyday. It was never that good before and it will never be that good again."

On covering Vietnam:

"If you were a young guy like me, unmarried, you couldn't let this story go by. I didn't know if I could cut it but I had to be there. In the end, they had to drag me kicking and screaming out of that place. It was the greatest story I've ever had. It was at the most important and influential and life changing. Most of my best friends today, like George Esper, were with me in the Saigon bureau. We're like brothers. The AP bureau in Saigon was the greatest news bureau that ever existed."

On what will happen if he witnesses a big story post-retirement:

"I'll call the AP and tell them what I see. I won't call CBS or the New York Times! But I won't be out chasing the ambulance. At some point you have to cut bait and that's what I'm doing."