What raises this book above the rank and file of the average remembrance of the air war in Vietnam is how forthrightly Rasimus deals with recalling the doubt and fear he suffered when going into combat, having gone into the Air Force from an obsession with flying rather than from any special desire to be a fighting man or out of patriotic drive. This is at least until Rasimus was socialized into the difference between fighter pilots and the pilots who just flew fighters. Apart from that you're also given great effective detail of just what the life was like, further informed by a critical mindset that was already dubious about the conduct of the war even back in the day. ( )