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摘要
摘要
It is 1966, the war is escalating, and a young Air Force Academy graduate's assignment is to patrol unfriendly territory with six-man hunter-killer teams. As a Forward Air Controller, flying single engine spotter planes, Flanagan is the link between fighter-bomber pilots and ground forces. This autobiographical account recreates the period when Flanagan, assigned to Project Delta, was plunged into major operations in key combat areas. Spectacular airstrikes, team rescues, lost men, thwarted attempts to save comrades--all are recounted here with raw honesty. A factual combat history from one man's perspective, this is also a thoughtful look at the warrior values of bravery, honesty, and integrity. Flanagan examines the influences that help build these values--educational institutions, the military training system (including the service academies), and religion--and reflects on the high cost of abandoning them.
In Vietnam Above the Treetops , Flanagan traces his life from adolescence through the training period, combat missions of all kinds, and re-entry into the everyday world. His war tales take us to key regions: from the Demilitarized Zone, south through the Central highlands, and into War Zone C near Cambodia. Flanagan tells the absolute truth of his experience in Vietnam-- call signs, bomb loads, and target coordinates are all historically accurate. He offers observations on the Vietnamese and Korean forces he worked with, comparing Eastern and Western cultures, and he vents his frustrations with the U.S. command structure. Determined to reconstruct the past, Flanagan re-read old letters from Vietnam, examined maps, deciphered pocket diaries, interviewed former comrades, and let his own long-buried memories surface. Flanagan did not find this book easy to write, but he wanted to pay tribute to his fellow warriors, especially those still missing in action; he wanted to exorcise his war nightmares and further understand his experience. Even more important, he needed to communicate the values he and his comrades lived by, in distant jungles where they faced some of the toughest circumstances known to human beings.
评论 (2)
出版社周刊评论
The author of this outstanding military memoir describes his experiences in Vietnam as a forward air-controller in 1966, piloting slow-moving, low-flying spotter planes, orchestrating spectacular air strikes (``saturation ordnance'') and shepherding the long-range reconnaissance teams of Project Delta, an autonomous Special Forces outfit staffed by Americans and Vietnamese. A strong writer with an eye for telling detail, Flanagan vividly conveys what it was like flying hazardous missions in monsoon weather, bending rules and regulations for the sake of the task at hand, enjoying the camaraderie of fellow warriors and waging war despite critical shortages and malfunctions. Flanagan notes that he became something of a burnout case near the end of his tour, flying carelessly and with a false sense of immortality. He was, he reports, ``tired of fighting incompetency and educating the stupid.'' The most dramatic section of the book tells a two-part story of the loss of a Project Delta team in an ambush and the night 16 years later when a voice on the phone said ``My name is Eleanor Bott Gregory. Do you know what happened to my brother?'' Photos. Military Book Club dual main selection. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
An Air Force officer's vigorous account of the Vietnam War. Flanagan always dreamed of being a flier, and attending the Air Force Academy in Colorado was everything he had hoped. It was strict, the training was superb, and particularly appealing was the honor code, whereby candidates were obliged always to tell the truth. The honor code served Flanagan well in Vietnam, which he volunteered for in 1966. Flanagan's memoir is not like Robert Mason's in Chickenhawk (1983), where the naive young officer is transformed into an embittered veteran questioning all wars. Flanagan is a straight arrow to the end; he stayed in the Air Guard after the war and eventually became a general. His job in Vietnam was to fly close in with small aircraft, to report and coordinate what he saw; sometimes, too, he had to don infantry gear and head into the jungle. Many of his blow-by-blow accounts of battles are drawn from notes, such as ``Team 10 located a VC work party...the Phantom 31 flight of three F-4s dropped 11 cans of 750-pound napalm right on them.'' His tale of a combat helicopter assault into a hot landing zone is harrowing indeed: scared pilots lifting up too quickly, grunts dropping from several feet in the air, a helicopter breaking apart. His descriptions of South Korean troops-- essentially mercenaries hired by the US, but fierce soldiers--are unique among American firsthand accounts. Flanagan's reportage is marred only by the sanitized speech of the soldiers: see James Jones, or Larry Heinemann. Much later, Flanagan became involved in the MIA cause, and yet he is never angry, only sorrowful. This is the perspective of a veteran who feels we failed because of a lack of resolve, that the news media distorted events or couldn't understand them, that the antiwar movement meant well but was wrong. Splendid tales of combat, but don't look here for what it all meant.
目录
Introduction |
Setting the Values Prelude to Combat: Creating a Warrior Orientation and Transition to Combat Defending Highway 1: Phu Cat with the Koreans Clearing the Valley: Koreans Launch Tiger V FACing with the Screaming Eagles at Tuy Hoa Project Delta at Chu Lai: Flying the F-4 |
The Central Highlands: Battling Monsoons and VC Project Delta in III Corps: Song Be and Tay Ninh Search for F-4 Pilot, Return to War Zone C Battle at Khe Sanh: FAC Shot Down Khe Sanh Again Winding Down: Re-entry into the World |
The Conflict Continues, the Values Endure |
Epilogue |
Glossary |
Bibliography |
Index |