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x i Author’s Note In this book, I have endeavored to tell the truth as accurately as possible . From the first page to the last, I have described all events as I saw and remember them and as I described them afterward in letters to my wife. If there are any inaccuracies, they are due to the passage of many years, and responsibility for them is mine alone. If in places my account differs from other accounts, it should be borne in mind many of these accounts were based on available historical documents rather than firsthand experience. Unlike World War II bomber crews, helicopter pilots in Vietnam did not undergo post-mission debriefings; we simply went out each day and got the job done. For this reason, some of these events never made it into military records. However, less detailed but historically accurate overviews of the actions of airmobile crews in Vietnam can be found in Shelby L. Stanton’s book Anatomy of a Division (Presidio) and Airmobility 1961–1971, written by George J. Tolson, Commanding General of the 1st Air Cavalry, Republic of Vietnam, and available on the World Wide Web at http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Vietnam/ Airmobility/airmobility-fm.html All names found in the index of this document refer to real people who participated directly in the events described. For those characters not listed in the index, I have used fictional names; I did not do extensive research to discover the actual names of the people whose names I never knew or did not remember. Tom A. Johnson This page intentionally left blank ...

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