Scheiding recounts his harrowing experience as a combat pilot in the Vietnam War and critiques the politicalization of the
military in this nonfiction work.
Just after he graduated from Iowa State University in 1965, the author enlisted in the United States Air Force; in 1968, he
volunteered to go to Vietnam as a pilot, eager to fulfill his patriotic duty. In 1971, he was deployed as an O-2A Forward Air
Controller (the O-2A is a light two-engine aircraft providing air support for the Army’s 101st Airborne Division). Scheiding
flew all kinds of missions—combat, patrol, reconnaissance, directing scheduled air strikes—and won a Distinguished
Flying Cross for his courageous efforts. All in all, the author flew an astonishing 317 combat missions and logged 630
hours of combat time over a perilous 334 days. When he returned to the United States, he was stunned by the pervasive
antiwar sentiment and hostility toward Vietnam veterans, an acrimony that he contends was stoked by a “biased left-wing
liberal news media.” He also argues, with more passion than persuasive power, that the transformation of the American
military from a fighting force to a political tool has had a deleterious effect on both the military and the country at large.
Most of Scheiding’s memoir is a granularly detailed chronicle of his experience in the military, one unlikely to sustain the
attention of a readership outside of his circle of family and friends. There are pages and pages of grainy photographs—one
shows a hallway of a dormitory in Vietnam—that make this remembrance feel like a personal scrapbook not intended for
public consumption. The author does furnish a vivid picture of the war, and reflects affectingly on his attempts to overcome
the trauma he carried into civilian life. Ultimately, though, this is not a recollection that is likely to garner a wide audience.
A memoir lacking in originality and general appeal.