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. One of the most iconic sounds that people relate to the Vietnam War is the “womp, woosh” of American Huey helicopters. Whether watching a film like Apocalypse Now or reading a book on the war those sounds will reverberate in the reader’s mind. During the war about 12,000 helicopters were deployed by the United States military. Of that number 7,013 were Hueys, almost all of which were US Army. The total number of helicopter pilots killed in Vietnam was 2202, and total non-pilot crew members who died were 2704. The most accurate estimate of the number of helicopter pilots who served in the war was roughly 40,000. A wry undertone of ironic wit...one of the best...a superb piece of story telling, really excellent." 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.

The book was published in 1983, the year Robert Mason was forty-one years old, eighteen years after he was a twenty-three year old in Vietnam. I had long wondered what it was like for those who were in Vietnam and this account, by Robert Mason, a helicopter pilot, gives us a good look at the conditions which the troops over there had to work under, as well as the author's questioning of why they were there and how to tell friend from foe. So many shades of grey. The troops on the ground undoubtedly had it far worse than the helicopter pilots did and the accounts of bodies piled up or soldiers missing limbs, was a constant refrain. This is a personal narrative of what I saw in Vietnam and how it affected me. The events all happened; the chronology and geography are correct to the best of my knowledge. The names of the characters . . . have been changed . . . Just remember,’ said Farris, ‘of the thirty-three kinds of snakes over here, thirty-one are poisonous.’ All the humor notwithstanding, you can’t help noticing that the book gets darker as it progresses. You’re not only witnessing the author’s flying and derring-do, you’re also there as he is being broken as a human being, succumbing first to the various temptations, suffering the consequences and losing his mental health and of course eventually dragging his family into it.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. I will have PTSD just from reading this book. Short scenes and events strung together. Moments in the lives and deaths of a group of men in a war. The big story is the war. The real stories are the individual actions and interactions between the men. And then there is some occasional sane thinking: Well written, lively...detailed story of one man's year at war from his unique perspective as a helicopter pilot...a major contribution to Vietnam War literature." This book was a recommended read by a member of my book club and I am glad I took the time to read it, even though it wasn't my usual reading material. Mason transferred to the 48th Aviation Company (referred to as the 49th in his memoir) in May 1966. He continued to fly helicopters, including assault missions for the 101st Airborne in Dak To as part of Operation Hawthorne in June 1966. [1]

Yeah.’ There was silence. Yes, I thought. We’re both scared out of our minds. It felt like we were near the end of our wait on death row.” December 1965 is described in chapter six, "The Holidays". Mason and a similarly experienced pilot, Resler, who became one of Mason's closest friends from Vietnam, began flying together. As a child, Robert Mason dreamed of levitating. As a young man, he dreamed of flying helicopters - and the U.S. Army gave him his chance. They sent him to Vietnam where, between August 1965 and July 1966, he flew more than 1,000 assault missions. 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."

Unaffected, straightforward... His descriptions of flying air assault, med-evac and ammo-resupply missions make exhilarating reading...an important addition to our growing Vietnam War literature. The second chapter, "August Cruise", describes Mason's trip to Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) aboard the USS Croatan, in August 1965. Chapter One, "Wings", covers the period June 1964 to 1965 and details Mason's training at the Army's Primary Helicopter School at Fort Wolters, Texas. After graduation in May 1965, most of Mason's classmates were sent to Vietnam. Mason thought he had avoided the war but, in late July, learned that he would be going overseas. How extraordinarily touching it is that these men who have suffered so much still want to make us better...If I sound just a little overwrought, I defy you to read this straightforward, in many ways underwrought, narrative and feel any differently...filled with the grim humor of men under pressure, filled with details..." Robert Mason writes about his experience of the brutality of a war he fought when he was young. He wrote about his time in Vietnam in 1965-66. For a while those fighting thought they were winning a war that would go on for years longer and claim many more victims.