Chickenhawk by Robert Mason Hardback 1983

"All Robert Mason knew when he entered the U.S. Army was that he wanted to fly helicopters. And as one of the first wave of assault helicopter pilots to ship out to South Vietnam in 1965, he did just that, flying more than 1,000 combat missions in the space of a year's tour of duty. Now, in this affecting, astoundingly detailed memoir, he gives us that war in all its banality, terror, and transcendent stupidity, from a perspective unique to the literature of the Vietnam War to date - the air."