Monday, February 25, 2013

Ed Rasimus's First Two Books

     When Thunder Rolled and Palace Cobra: I read them over the last week.  They're like stepping into a time machine; while the authorial voice is the guy you knew from his blog -- and should be, he wrote the first one not all that long before starting it -- it's still, somehow, a much younger guy talking, from an earlier time.

     The two books recount his two tours in Southeast Asia (some years apart), flying sorties over North Vietnam; and they're about dealing with fear, dealing with the addictive exhilaration of doing the job, day after day, and making it back.  They are memoirs, not novels; some threads start and are never returned to.  They capture the scene with compelling clarity.

     Fighter pilots are a specialized breed and these two books give you a view of them you'd never get in real life unless you were one.  Highly recommended.  Available as both book-type books and for the Kindle.  Get them via the Amazon link at Tam's.

3 comments:

Wilson said...

" Fighter pilots are a specialized breed and these two books give you a view of them you'd never get in real life unless you were one."

In that same vein allow me to recommend "Chickenhawk" by Robert Mason. Hands down the best book I have ever read about Viet Nam and also the best aviation related book. It is a first person account of a helicopter pilot's life in combat. Unforgetable.

Old NFO said...

Yep, and he's 'lucky' he survived those tours... Those who have been there and come home understand the underlying story...

jed said...

Cool, the library has 3 of 'em -- on my list of stuff there.

In this vein, I'm a fan of stuff like Dale Brown's Flight of the Old Dog, and Stephen Coonts' Flight of the Intruder. Some years ago I read a very good story of F-105 operations over N. Vietnam, not Thud Ridge, written by a pilot, which might have been When Thunder Rolled, but Rasimus' name doesn't ring a bell. I remember developing a whole new distaste for LBJ as I read it.