Others have said it better about this memoir. Written in the years just after it occurred. And which I failed to read in the more than 50 years between. Because it's too close to home.

This book is so distressing, more than most war books I have read. Lots of blood and guts and shattered bodies that were sometimes left to rot for several days so they could be more easily located in the tall elephant grass – by the smell.Setting Up Camp", the third chapter, tells the story of the Cavalry's deployment to An Khe, in central South Vietnam, and Mason's first combat experiences in September 1965.

Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (4 August 1983). "No Headline". The New York Times . Retrieved November 6, 2009. More than any other writer, Mason has been able to capture the feeling of what it was like to be there.” -The Philadelphia InquirerThis book is a classic for a reason; THE best book on the Hueys' and their pilots' roles in the early days of Vietnam. It actually reminded me a lot of "American Sniper," in that it's the story of a good soldier in a bad war who has trouble readjusting to the real world. Just remember,’ said Farris, ‘of the thirty-three kinds of snakes over here, thirty-one are poisonous.’ The book begins with Mason's training at the Army's Primary Helicopter School at Fort Wolters, Texas. After graduation in May 1965, he eventually learns he will be sent to Vietnam, making the trip in August with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) aboard the USS Croatan. The Cavalry is initially posted to An Khe, in central South Vietnam, where Mason first experiences combat. It’s one of the advantages of being an officer. We get “nonspecific urethritis.” Enlisted men get the clap.’” Death is almost always gruesome as it is described by Robert Mason in this most gruesome book. There is the intensity of heroism too. Eventually there is the heroism of going on with life having experienced so much death.

I think that with those ratios, you could afford to come to a prejudicial, sweeping generalization – like, kill them all.’ Farris turned and left.” Add this one to my long list of books about the American War in Vietnam. I am the right age to have been drafted for that war, but was not due to a variety of deferments and a high lottery number. The short story is that I was considering fleeing to Canada if I was drafted but never had to make that momentous decision that would have significantly changed my life. I never came to that fork in the road so will always wonder what I would have done if I was actually faced with that choice. He experiences the accelerating terror, the increasingly desperate courage of a man 'acting out the role of a hero long after he realises that the conduct of the war is insane,' says the New York Times. He was an everyday combat hero in Vietnam, and he has written quite a good book...endless cold sweat nights before and after repeated landings in enemy-ringed landing zones...the serious and intuitive business of flying helicopters in combat."

Become a Member

A precise chronological depiction of life as a helicopter pilot leading up to and during the Vietnam war. I'll remember passages of extreme violence and gore, and how common these eventually become. Sporadic action but constant fear, and hilarious dark military humor, from kids who had no business being there and only started to understand much later. reprint stiff wrappers As New small octavo 399pp., Author flew over 1000 combat missions in Vietnam. A Gruesome and often amusing account of a waste of lives and technology.