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Chickenhawk | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Mason
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $8.91
You Save: $7.09 (44%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  97 reviews
Sales Rank: 100269
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0143035711
Dewey Decimal Number: 959.70438092
EAN: 9780143035718
ASIN: 0143035711
Publication Date: March 29, 2005
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Product Description
More than half a million copies of Chickenhawk have been sold since it was first published in 1983. Now with a new afterword by the author and photographs taken by him during the conflict, this straight-from-the-shoulder account tells the electrifying truth about the helicopter war in Vietnam. This is Robert Masons 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 deaththe extreme emotions of a "chickenhawk" in constant danger.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 92 more reviews...
If You Didn't Go, And Want To Know What It Was Really Like, Read Chickenhawk December 15, 2008
I was born in the early 1950s and grew up during the golden age of television. One of the great shows in the mid sixties was a show called The Whirly Birds, based on the adventures of a for hire helicopter company in California. They used the progressively changing Model 47 Bell helicopters for the series and I was enamored with them. I knew what I wanted to do with my life and that was to fly these things.
So as I approached the age of adulthood, I prepared to become a helo pilot. Of course back then, the only outlet for such training and a career was strictly military. So since I came up in a Navy house, I was going to join the Navy, go to flight training school, and see where I could go to fly.
The only problem with this whole senario is that Viet Nam happened. I wasn't paying a lot of attention to it. We would eat as a family around the supper table with the tv on right there, seeing the images each night of the war that was taking place on the other side of the world, but not giving it much importance in our everyday lives. That is until I announced that I was going to join the military and fly helicopters.
My father had had a son by another marriage in Germany, and I know he knew what was going on in Nam. He took me aside one day and said that if I really wanted to fly, then I should go to college, get a degree, and then after that, I could go into officer training school and then fly as an officer, hopefully getting a better assignment than a warrant officer, who basically had no authority. But what he was really saying was that he was hoping the war would be over by the time I got out of school. My father had great wisdom and the war did indeed end one month after I graduated. But I always felt that I was somehow deprived or cheated out of a childhood dream.
That's why when Robert Mason's book Chickenhawk came out, I was anxious to see what it was like and what I had missed. I can't thank my dad enough for sparing this kind hearted kid the misery that these brave men went through.
Chickehawk is a brutally honest look at the ravages of modern war conducted in a no-win situation. It's a heart breaking story of someone, very much like me, who wanted to fly helicopters, and finds himself in a situation that he has no control over, no input into, and barely escapes from, each day.
Mason describes in detail his time in the cockpit of a Huey, how the ship works, it's weaknesses, strongpoints, enough detail to satisfy the chopper enthusiast fully, but it's the day by day description of the ordeal to just stay alive that will shock, dismay, and leave numb the reader of this original Nam helicopter saga.
And that he makes it back alive is not enough, but what happens afterward will leave the reader out of breath and shaking his head in great sorrow for and empathy with Mason.
Chickenhawk was the first Viet Nam book specifically written from the eyes of a helo pilot and in my opinion, still the best. I've read it four times and plan to revisit it again soon, lest I forget what my father, in his love and wisdom, saved me from experiencing. Thanks Dad!
 "THE" chopper's book about 'NAM... a must read. December 1, 2008
4,5 stars (as it is it would be rated five by amazon.com no matter what because of the huge number of five stars reviews...)
Poignant and to the point even if the last part of the book goes a bit downhill... from a reader point of view.
A must read, but try also FIELDS OF FIRE... and you will see the choppers from "the grunts" perspective too!.
Probably, the best books to read about the VIETNAM WAR.
Vastly detailed as long as choppers are concerned and a page turner at least for 3/4 parts of it.
Cheers
ADB
PS: Why say more?... all has already been said... really gutsy guys.
one of the best November 25, 2008
As a vet of this war, and someone who has read several dozen books on the subject, this is my personal favorite. Just bought this copy for a nephew who has become interested in the history of this conflict. HIghly recommended.
ChickenHawk October 13, 2008
Best I have read. Must follow up and read the Robert Mason's,
Back to the World. Life After Vietnam.
Huey October 11, 2008
I should have read this book years ago! American Huey 369 (Americanhuey369.com) stimulated my interest in wanting to know more about the courages soldiers who went to Vietnam and flew helicopters.
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