Enough to make a grown man cry

What would make Terry Crump cry in a Milwaukee airport?

Terry and I have been so pleased with the response to It Was My Turn so far. The number of people who have told us they have ordered it, plus the very positive reviews we are getting are very encouraging. These comments are especially meaningful coming from the men with whom Terry served and flew, and those who were on the ground fighting for their lives as the Cobras zoomed overhead flinging all kinds of ordnance at the enemy seeking to kill them.

One of those I mentioned in an earlier post, Paul Boyd. A Green Beret serving with the SOG team RT Montana out of Kontum, and a career Foreign Service officer for the US after the war, Boyd has written a review on Amazon that was, well, let me tell you.

Terry was in Milwaukee on his way home after watching Green Bay beat up the hapless 49ers when I emailed him what Paul wrote. Terry emailed back:

“They won’t let me on the plane until I stop crying.”

That’s Terry.

I won’t make you go to Amazon to read the review. Here it is:

In It Was My Turn, Gerald Baron tells a fascinating but previously neglected aspect of America’s war in Vietnam—the exploits of the 361st Aerial Weapons Company (the Pink Panthers) and their fellow warriors in the 57th and 170th Assault Helicopter Companies. These units flew perilous secret missions into enemy held territory in Laos and Cambodia supporting small Special Forces teams assigned to the Military Assistance Command Vietnam- Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) whose missions and lives depended heavily on the incredible skills, determination and courage of those helicopter pilots and crews.

The book is built around the exploits of Terry Crump, a heroic Cobra helicopter gunship pilot who was awarded an astonishing seven Distinguished Flying Crosses. But this book also contains a wealth of information about the exploits of many other helicopter pilots and crews, both “snakes” (Cobras) and the “slicks,” the famed ‘Huey’ choppers who flew stealthy missions to insert the teams, and then repeatedly flew through storms of small arms and anti-aircraft fire to extract those teams.

It Was My Turn puts you in the cockpits of the Cobras and Hueys on these dramatic missions and shows you how only supreme airmanship, a killer instinct, full commitment, an adventurous spirit—and a certain amount of luck—were components of victory and survival in the intense air-to-ground combat environment in this part of the war.

Terry Crump and his fellow knights of the air flew some of the most challenging combat helicopter missions of the Vietnam War, and as a former member of a SOG reconnaissance team, I have always been in awe of what the Pink Panthers and the assault helicopter units supporting SOG did in helping SOG carry the fight to the enemy. But in reading this book, I have learned much, not only about the view from the cockpit of a helicopter fighting what was then a secret war in Laos and Cambodia, but about details that were new to me about SOG operations on the ground.

More than fifty years after the end of the U.S. combat role in Vietnam, Gerald Baron has done the essential work of a historian, giving us new information, providing a fresh perspective and shining a light into the further reaches of a war that lingers still in the American imagination.

The remarkable exploits of CWO Terry Crump and his fellow warriors exemplify the valor required to fly these missions, but also highlight the heavy emotional costs that combat imposes on those who fight.

It Was My Turn is full of thrilling accounts of some of the most dangerous helicopter combat missions of the war in Vietnam, and the simultaneous secret wars in Laos and Cambodia.

It Was My Turn belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the Vietnam war, special operations, the vital role of combat helicopters and their crews in that conflict, and the always central element in combat: the character of the individual warrior.

Thank so much, Paul.

At the SOAR reunion in Las Vegas in October, Terry and I met and then sat down to a video interview with Bruce Christensen. Bruce runs the website called sogsite, which was and continues to be a very important research resource for me on SOG. I was surprised and thrilled a couple of days ago to the site and see It Was My Turn prominently featured front and center on the site (introductory picture). Check it out: https://sogsite.com/2024/11/22/book-of-the-week-it-was-my-turn-one-of-vietnams-most-decorated-pilots-and-americas-secret-war/

I emailed Bruce to thank him and he sent me a link to the video interview he did with Terry and me. (How come Terry looks so calm and collected and I’m moving around like a nervous ninny?) In addition to it being on sogsite, it is on YouTube and has already received over 300 views (and at least one book sale). Check it out:

https://sogsite.com/welcome-to-the-macv-sog-video-library-2/

Bruce also added our book trailer to his site. Thank you Bruce! If you are interested in learning more about SOG, Bruce’s website is a great place to linger.

Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association is the main association for Vietnam chopper pilots and they publish a magazine called Aviator. Phil Marshall, a Vietnam pilot who has written 26 books, has agreed to do a review of It Was My Turn. Looking forward to that.

More incredible stories coming soon.

I’m very excited to share a story on A Tardy Salute that I have been working on for some time. Mike Wilson was a slick pilot serving with Terry and the Panthers at Holloway. (Transport versions of Hueys were called slicks probably as they were slicked down to be able to carry as many men into and out of battle as possible. Hueys loaded with rockets and guns were called gunships.) Terry, Woody, and other Panthers flew with Mike on a number of missions, including Operation Tailwind.

Tardy Salute readers may recall a previous post where I shared the incredible audio of a combat mission involving a dual Prairie Fire (two teams a few miles apart being overrun by the enemy and in immediate danger of dying). Terry flew on that mission and Sam Eriksson, affiliated with Savage Game Design, created a YouTube video of from that recording. Here:

After I got back from Vegas, Mike sent me a recording that he did on a mission on Christmas Day 1970. I will share the details of that harrowing mission via the actual combat recording with you soon.

In the last post, I put a picture of Mike Ware, a Kingsman slick pilot with the 101st. I met him at the reunion as well. Mike shared with me chapters of a book he has been working on for some time. It includes a mission in which he, as AC (Aircraft Commander) rescued a crew from a Huey gunship that had been shot down right near them. Reading that account will make almost anyone believe in miracles–as well as the remarkable guts and flying skill of these aviators. I just got Mike’s permission today to tell a bit of his story.

Finally, Christmas is coming soon. A hint…