Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The helicopter pilot was flying towards the medical pad at Camp Holloway in Pleiku, Vietnam. He had to handle the radios, which were constantly filled with unintelligible bullshit. #2 During a mission, I learned that the boy was alive when we got him back to the medical pad with the others, but I wasn’t in a position to learn his identity so I don’t know if he made it or not. #3 My first mission in Vietnam was a sensory overload. I was shocked by the amount of noise and activity that was going on around me, and I was completely overwhelmed. I thought, This is not how I imagined it at all. #4 I had been a student at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, a year and a half before I was drafted. I had applied for a student loan through the Illinois Student Loan Program and was working at a factory that manufactured oil, air, and gas filters for automobiles. I was ordered to report for duty in just a few short weeks.

Mark Garrison recounts his experiences from being on the short list for the draft during the Vietnam War, to signing up to be a helicopter pilot, and his tour of duty with the Crocodiles and Alligators of the 119th Assault Helicopter Company.

A true, bestselling story from the battlefield that faithfully portrays the horror, the madness, and the trauma of the Vietnam War More than half a million copies of Chickenhawk have been sold since it was first published in 1983. Now with a new afterword by the author and photographs taken by him during the conflict, this straight-from-the-shoulder account tells the electrifying truth about the helicopter war in Vietnam. This is Robert Mason’s astounding personal story of men at war. A veteran of more than one thousand combat missions, Mason gives staggering descriptions that cut to the heart of the combat experience: the fear and belligerence, the quiet insights and raging madness, the lasting friendships and sudden death—the extreme emotions of a "chickenhawk" in constant danger. "Very simply the best book so far about Vietnam." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Mark Garrison recounts his experiences from being on the short list for the draft during the Vietnam War, to signing up to be a helicopter pilot, and his tour of duty with the Crocodiles and Alligators of the 119th Assault Helicopter Company.

The aeroscouts of the 1st Infantry Division had three words emblazoned on their unit patch: Low Level Hell. It was then and continues today as the perfect concise definition of what these intrepid aviators experienced as they ranged the skies of Vietnam from the Cambodian border to the Iron Triangle. The Outcasts, as they were known, flew low and slow, aerial eyes of the division in search of the enemy. Too often for longevity’s sake they found the Viet Cong and the fight was on. These young pilots (19-22 years old) “invented” the book as they went along. Praise for Low Level Hell “An absolutely splendid and engrossing book. The most compelling part is the accounts of his many air-to-ground engagements. There were moments when I literally held my breath.”—Dr. Charles H. Cureton, Chief Historian, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine (TRADOC) Command “Low Level Hell is the best ‘bird’s eye view’ of the helicopter war in Vietnam in print today. No volume better describes the feelings from the cockpit. Mills has captured the realities of a select group of aviators who shot craps with death on every mission.”—R.S. Maxham, Director, U.S. Army Aviation Museum

Flies the reader into combat with the same elite air cavalry unit portrayed in the film "Apocalypse Now"

In 1968, twenty-one-year-old Fred McCarthy transitioned from the monastic life of a seminary student to that of a U.S. Army helicopter gunship commander in Vietnam. Despite preparation from a family tradition of decorated combat service, a strong sense of patriotism, a love for aviation, and a desire for adventure, he got far more than he bargained for. Written after 50 years of reflection, reading, and study, this memoir tells both a universal story about war, adventure, and perseverance and, also shares the intensely personal experience of the Vietnam War and its legacy for those who fought in it. McCarthy describes many of his missions, reflects on the nature of being a combat helicopter pilot, and processes the experience through his poetry, letters home, and reflective analysis.