At the height of the Vietnam war, allied tactical fighter aircraft flew over 700 missions every day against ground targets across the southern republic. This formidable fire power was directed by forward air controllers (FACs), whose job was to ensure that each operation was destructive to the enemy yet harmless to friendly troops. The work was high pressure and frequently hazardous for the FAC pilots who flew small, slow and often unarmed aircraft and marked targets for attack with smoke rockets or grenades.Hit my smoke tells the story of the 36 Royal Australian Air Force pilots who flew with the US Air Force as FACs between 1966 and 1971. Told through a series of first-hand narratives, it captures the full flavour of the gallant work performed by this little-known band of professional and highly-decorated airmen-from the perils and triumphs of combat, to the frustrations of participating in a politically unpopular conflict.

His style was iconic, and vintage ‘80s: aviator goggles, Jheri curls, neck roll, boxy pads. Eric Dickerson is the greatest player in Los Angeles Rams history and the NFL’s single season record holder for most rushing yards. In 2019, Dickerson was named to the National Football League’s 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. With an elegant upright running style that produced some of football’s most-watched highlights, it was said he was so smooth you couldn’t hear his pads clack as he glided past you. But during his Hall of Fame career, his greatness was often overshadowed by his contentious disputes with Rams management about his contract. In the pre-free agency era, tensions over his exploitative contract often overshadowed his accomplishments. What’s his problem? went the familiar refrain from the media. Can’t he just shut up and run? It’s time to reexamine how Eric Dickerson was portrayed. For the first time, he’s telling his story. And he’s not holding anything back.

From retired Air Force pilot Marshall Harrison comes a remarkable memoir of aerial warfare in Vietnam. In his third combat tour, Harrison found himself converted from the high performance world of jets to the awkward-looking OV-10 Bronco and assigned as a FAC forward air controller. A captivating tale of valor, brotherhood, and patriotism unravels in the pages of A Lonely Kind of War, Forward Air Controller, Vietnam, a posthumous release by this published author through Xlibris. Harrison is a born story teller. There is excitement, suspense, and humor in this account of the life of a FAC. They were a small group of dedicated pilots flying lightly armed prop-driven aircrafts in South Vietnam. Considered to be the eyes and ears of the attack aircraft, their job was to fly low and slow, find, fix, and direct airstrikes against an elusive enemy concealed by the heavy rainforest and jungles, an area the FACs referred to as the Green Square. The flying scenes are riveting: learning to fly the maneuverable Bronco, clearing in the fast-movers to drop massive 750-lb bombs without causing injury to the friendlies, and conducting covert operation into Cambodia---over the fence with the mad men in the green beanies. On one of these secret missions, he is shot down and spends a harrowing night in the jungle. FACs lived with the troops in the field and flew from unimproved airstrips; they virtually controlled the aerial battlefields of South Vietnam. Their losses were staggering and they usually died alone.

The stories of Australian Forward Air Controllers in the Vietnam war - pilots who marked targets for attack using smoke rockets or grenades.

A study of the decades leading up to World War II profiles the world leaders, politicians, business people, and others whose personal politics and ideologies provided an inevitable barrier to the peace process and whose actions led to the outbreak of war.

By the time of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military had transitioned to jet aircraft. Yet leaders soon learned prop-driven planes could still play a role in counterinsurgency warfare. World War II-era Douglas B-26 light bombers proved effective in close air support and interdiction, beginning with Operation Farm Gate in 1961. Forty B-26s were remanufactured as improved A-26 attack aircraft, which destroyed hundreds of North Vietnamese supply vehicles on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1966-1969. The personal recollections of 37 pilots, navigators, maintenance and armament personnel, and family members, tell the harrowing story of B-26 and A-26 Air Commando Wing combat operations in Vietnam and Laos.

Bill Garten's third book of poetry, Eventually, was written while in the Caribbean and in the North Carolina mountains. These poems deal with relationships beginning and ending as well as memories and philosophy weaving their threads throughout each poem. Bill Garten uses concrete imagery and daily observations in a style similar to Billy Collins, Stephen Dunn and Charles Bukowski. This third book is intensely laced with humor and you won't be disappointed once you start reading.