
Super Slick
Life and Death in a Huey Helicopter in Vietnam
Tom Feigel(Autor*in)
Larry Weill(Co-Autor*in)
Stackpole Books (Verlag)
Erschienen am 16. Juli 2024
288 Seiten
978-0-8117-7296-9 (ISBN)
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Beschreibung
100% of author royalties are being donated to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation
Helicopters loom large in how we picture the Vietnam War. Kilgore's birds coming in hot (and Wagnerian) out of the rising sun in Apocalypse Now. The infantry/helicopter assault at Ia Drang in the climax of We Were Soldiers. A chopper flying over green rice paddies, with a teenaged door gunner manning a .50-cal. A slick dropping into an LZ whirling with purple smoke. We can only imagine it. Tom Feigel lived it, as a twenty-year-old crew chief in a Huey. Super Slick is the story of his year in Vietnam.
Tom Feigel grew up a typical post-World War II kid who wrestled in high school, had a steady girl, and loved working on cars-and then everything changed. Less than a year out of high school, he was drafted into the army and assigned to aviation, ultimately to helicopters. In Vietnam in 1970, he first worked as a "hangar rat," part of the ground crew responsible for maintaining the company's thirty Hueys-the Warriors and Thunderbirds-of the 336th Assault Helicopter Company, which operated in southern South Vietnam, in the Mekong Delta and U Minh Forest. In short order, Feigel volunteered for a flight mission to replace the rotors of a damaged chopper-which led to his becoming a crew chief on a transport slick called Warrior 21. Before long, he and 21's crew asked the company commander for permission to re-outfit their ship for thicker, more dangerous missions-and they ended up flying an up-gunned helicopter call sign Super Slick, tasked with similar missions but into more dangerous zones.
Feigel's memoir recounts the thick and thin of helicopter combat in Vietnam. Heart-pumping missions into hot landing zones (sometimes inserting and extracting Navy SEALs). Adrenaline-fueled flights into enemy-infested jungles and free-fire zones. Low-level reconnaissance. "Hash and trash" runs to deliver supplies to far-flung units. Terrifying nighttime operations where trees posed nearly as much danger as the enemy. Razor-thin margins between life and death. It was dangerous; it was thrilling. The crews loved it; the crews hated it. They were proud of it. And they never wanted to do it again. Super Slick is as close as you can get to being inside a Huey-to hearing the radio chatter, feeling the thrum of the rotors, the pounding of the door guns.
Helicopters loom large in how we picture the Vietnam War. Kilgore's birds coming in hot (and Wagnerian) out of the rising sun in Apocalypse Now. The infantry/helicopter assault at Ia Drang in the climax of We Were Soldiers. A chopper flying over green rice paddies, with a teenaged door gunner manning a .50-cal. A slick dropping into an LZ whirling with purple smoke. We can only imagine it. Tom Feigel lived it, as a twenty-year-old crew chief in a Huey. Super Slick is the story of his year in Vietnam.
Tom Feigel grew up a typical post-World War II kid who wrestled in high school, had a steady girl, and loved working on cars-and then everything changed. Less than a year out of high school, he was drafted into the army and assigned to aviation, ultimately to helicopters. In Vietnam in 1970, he first worked as a "hangar rat," part of the ground crew responsible for maintaining the company's thirty Hueys-the Warriors and Thunderbirds-of the 336th Assault Helicopter Company, which operated in southern South Vietnam, in the Mekong Delta and U Minh Forest. In short order, Feigel volunteered for a flight mission to replace the rotors of a damaged chopper-which led to his becoming a crew chief on a transport slick called Warrior 21. Before long, he and 21's crew asked the company commander for permission to re-outfit their ship for thicker, more dangerous missions-and they ended up flying an up-gunned helicopter call sign Super Slick, tasked with similar missions but into more dangerous zones.
Feigel's memoir recounts the thick and thin of helicopter combat in Vietnam. Heart-pumping missions into hot landing zones (sometimes inserting and extracting Navy SEALs). Adrenaline-fueled flights into enemy-infested jungles and free-fire zones. Low-level reconnaissance. "Hash and trash" runs to deliver supplies to far-flung units. Terrifying nighttime operations where trees posed nearly as much danger as the enemy. Razor-thin margins between life and death. It was dangerous; it was thrilling. The crews loved it; the crews hated it. They were proud of it. And they never wanted to do it again. Super Slick is as close as you can get to being inside a Huey-to hearing the radio chatter, feeling the thrum of the rotors, the pounding of the door guns.
Weitere Details
Sprache
Englisch
Verlagsort
PA
USA
Illustrationen
2 BW Illustrations, 41 BW Photos, 2 Maps
Dateigröße
4,20 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-8117-7296-9 (9780811772969)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Weitere Ausgaben
Personen
Tom Feigel is a native of Rochester, New York, where he returned after the war and worked for Xerox for forty years. His service in Vietnam earned him a Purple Heart, the Air Medal, and four Army Commendation Medals. He now lives in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
Larry Weill is a retired U.S. Navy Reserve captain who later earned promotion to Rear Admiral and served as Commander of the New York Naval Militia. A former ranger in the Adirondacks, he is the author of a handful of books on the Adirondack Mountains of New York, including Excuse Me, Sir . . . Your Socks Are on Fire: The Life and Times of a Wilderness Park Ranger in the Adirondack Mountains. He lives near Rochester, New York.
Larry Weill is a retired U.S. Navy Reserve captain who later earned promotion to Rear Admiral and served as Commander of the New York Naval Militia. A former ranger in the Adirondacks, he is the author of a handful of books on the Adirondack Mountains of New York, including Excuse Me, Sir . . . Your Socks Are on Fire: The Life and Times of a Wilderness Park Ranger in the Adirondack Mountains. He lives near Rochester, New York.
Inhalt
- Intro
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Part I
- The Early Years
- 1
- Beginnings
- 2
- Boot Camp
- 3
- Aviation School
- 4
- Leave-Last Days of Freedom
- 5
- Journey to the Unknown
- 6
- First Combat Mission
- 7
- Lucky Strike
- Seven Helmets on the Altar
- 8
- Two Birthdays in March
- 9
- Operating with the SEALs
- 10
- Replacing Lucky Strike
- 11
- First Confirmed Kill
- The Scar on My Soul
- 12
- Whit
- Another Casualty of the War
- 13
- Battle at VC Lake
- 14
- Cambodian Incursion
- 15
- Crash of the SEAL Ship
- Another Unnecessary Loss
- 16
- Medevac Reunion Forty-Five Years Later
- 17
- Fourth of July
- The Good and the Bad
- 18
- Agent Orange
- How OCD Saved My Life
- 19
- The Moral Compass
- To Shoot or Not to Shoot
- 20
- Our Own Brand of Vietnamization
- 21
- Breaking Up the Crew
- 22
- The Last Firefight
- 23
- Transfer to the Cavalry
- 24
- Reunion in Vinh Long
- 25
- The Long Trip Home
- Part II
- Many Years Later
- 26
- Not Just Another Name on the Wall
- 27
- Finding Super Slick
- 28
- Where Are They Today?
- About the Authors
- Thoughts of a Collaborative Author
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