The first book I trusted that started changing my thinking about the American engagement in Viet Nam. ( )

Most first hand accounts of wars I have read are written by a somewhat amateur author. Not this one. Robert Mason infuses his terrifying tale with plenty of drama and humanity, and managed to write one of the best personal military history I have ever read.

Part of it is surely the subject matter, as I am a huge fan of aviation and its lore. And part of it is that I haven't yet read a lot about the Vietnam War.

But either way, I could not put this book down. Every mission seems to be even more dramatic than the last, and you can see Mason's flying and survival skills just barely keeping up with the challenge. You can also viscerally feel the surviver bias at work, with plenty of close calls and dead friends. It's terrifying and thrilling at the same time.

And towards the end, the book truly surprised me with a very frank account of PTSD and the life of a veteran, which I truly hadn't read anywhere else in this level of clarity.

I cannot recommend this book enough. Perhaps a bit depressing at times, but an utterly compelling story, and without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read. ( )

Spot on description of the war. ( )

I reread Robert Mason's Chickenhawk. This memoir of Robert Mason's tone as a Huey pilot flying Slicks in Vietnam provides his personal perspective on what his service was.

You See Mason a Warrant Officer grow as a pilot ABC also see him cling to his sanity by will and tranquilizers.

Robert Mason tells you the good and the bad of his time in Vietnam and his growing disillusionment with the war as it was fought and portrayed.

One of the best personal accounts I have read. ( )

Chickenhawk is Robert Mason's narrative of his experiences as a "Huey" UH-1 Iroquois helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. The book chronicles his enlistment, flight training, deployment to and experiences in Vietnam, and his experiences after returning from the war.
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. ( )