Combat helicopter pilots in the Vietnam War flew each mission facing the possibility of imminent death. Begun as a series of attempted letters to the Department of Veterans Affairs, this compelling memoir of an aircraft commander in the 116th Assault Helicopter Company--"The Hornets"--relates his experience of the war in frank detail.From supporting the 25th Infantry Division's invasion of Cambodia, to flying the lead aircraft in the 101st Airmobile Division's pivotal Operation Lam...

This is the story that inspired the acclaimed Burt Lancaster film, Go Tell the Spartans. It's 1964--early days in South Vietnam--and the U.S. Army Raiders have garrisoned a town that the French abandoned ten years before. The Viet Cong attack; the Americans reinforce. They're not about to repeat the mistakes of the French! "'Sad, bawdy, and compelling," wrote the Detroit Free Press. Prophetic, too, of how the larger war would end. Revised 2015 edition.

"I am awed by my destructive power. With a small squeeze of the gun trigger under my right index finger, I can rip the turret off a thirty-ton battle tank and throw it 200 feet across the desert, while the rest of the tank burns in an explosion of white-hot, burning phosphorescence. But the cold, morbid reality of it does not exist from where I sit and watch it happen. There's no dramatic chord. No deafening explosion. No screams suddenly stifled. The soundtrack of a pilot's war is mos...

Featuring a new introduction by the author about his return to Vietnam, his reflections on the war, and his humanitarian work in Cambodia.“The enemy had a single purpose: kill me and my teammates.”Larry Chambers was still new to Vietnam in early 1969 when the LRRPs of the 101st Airborne Division became L Company, 75th (Rangers). But his unit’s mission stayed the same: act as the eyes and ears of the 101st deep in the dreaded A Shau Valley—where the...

From flying with the Screaming Eagles in Vietnam to serving with the Marines and the Royal Navy, this memoir recounts the life of a career military pilot.Sometimes it just isn't your day. Whether your helicopter comes apart in flight due to equipment failure, or another aircraft runs into you in midair, or an enemy gunner lands his rounds in exactly the right spot to take you out of the sky. That's why, after twenty-four years and more than five thousand flight hou...

Excerpt: "I watched two point men take a 50-caliber machine gun bullet to the head, and watched the third being grabbed and taken behind enemy lines. Two of the enemy soldiers, which we often referred to as gooks, quickly came after me. As I quickly mowed them down with my automatic rifle, I crawled backwards away from the enemy gunfire, using my helmet to push sand in front of me as I went, which made it possible to look behind me. But as I looked back, I realized that my safety net was n...

"This moving memoir about the gritty life of a military helicopter pilot fills a gap in the genre of Vietnam literature."— Foreword ReviewsIn the Vietnam War, 2,197 helicopter pilots and 2,717 crew members were killed. Black Cat 2-1 is the story of one pilot who made it home and the valiant men he served with who risked their lives for the troops on the ground. Bob Ford invites readers into the Huey helicopters he flew on more than 1,000 missions w...

It’s the year 1969. I was serving in the U.S. Army with my brothers of First Platoon Company A 3/1 11th Bde Americal (23rd Infantry) Division. We were average American sons, fathers, husbands, or brothers who’d enlisted or been drafted from all over the United States and who’d all come from different backgrounds. We came together and formed a brotherhood that will last through time.I share my experiences about weeks of boredom and minutes to hours of terror and surviving the heat, ...

It was 1968 and Robert Hartley was on his first combat mission in Vietnam as copilot of a helicopter gunship. As he and his platoon leader flew over the A Shau Valley, a Chinook helicopter engulfed in flames suddenly came into view. Hartley noticed tiny black smoking objects exiting the tail ramp of the aircraft. Seconds later, he realized those objects were men escaping the flames and plunging to their deaths. It was in that moment that he silently wondered, How the hell did I get here?

Elite and highly trained, the 3d Force Recon's eight-man teams were assigned to obtain vital information about NVA operations. Alone, the men of these small teams were sent behind enemy lines, where they all knew that a single mistake could cost everyone their lives.United States Navy Hospital Corpsman Bruce Norton was the only navy corpsman to act as a Marine Force Recon Team Leader. In Force Recon Diary, 1969 Doc Norton chronicles his life, mission by mission, with the 3...

A Vietnam War veteran paints a searing portrait of his one-year tour of duty as an Army draftee, shedding light on the emotional and physical casualties of warIn this intimate memoir, Perry A. Ulander chronicles with powerful clarity the bewildering predicament he confronted and the fellowship and guidance that transformed him during the year he served as an American GI in the jungles of Vietnam. Conveying with unadorned precision the harrowing experiences that sha...

**An astonishing memoir of military courage at a remote outpost during the Vietnam War“A riveting, dead-true account in the tradition of Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers Once...and Young.”—Steven Pressfield, national bestselling author of The Lion’s Gate**In October 1969, William Albracht, the youngest Green Beret captain in Vietnam, took command of a remote hilltop outpost called Firebase Kate held by only 27 American soldiers and 156 Montagn...