Saving Infantry and SOG Souls A Crew Chief's View

101st Airborne Helicopter Gunships Supporting Airborne Infantry, LRRPs, and Special Forces SOG Units in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bien Hoa, Hue, Northern I Corps, & the A-Shau Valley.
As a UH-1C gunship platoon leader and pilot in Vietnam, I can highly recommend Roger’s book. Primarily because while dozens of books have been written by pilots who flew in Vietnam, few have been written by crew chiefs who were as critical to mission success as the pilots and whose duties were not only varied but arguably more interesting. As one responsible for putting pilots and mission-ready aircraft together, scheduling pilots was rarely a problem, but keeping our aircraft availability up often called for herculean efforts on the part of crew chiefs and maintenance personnel. That work was over and above the daily aircraft preparation requirements even before the pilots arrived in the morning and the post-flight requirements at the end of the day. From my point of view, helicopter crew chiefs, gunners, and maintenance support personnel were the unsung heroes of the Vietnam War, and Roger’s book demonstrates that well. —Jerry R. Fry, Col. USA (Ret.), Black Angel-6, RVN: 1967/8/9