Apache. Ed Macy

Designed in the mid 1980s to take on the Soviets, the Apache is the most sophisticated fighting helicopter the world has ever known. Ed Macy's account of the incredibly hard Apache selection process combined with his description of the sheer difficulty of flying one provides an insight into the relationship between man & machine.

Macy, retired after 23 years in the British army, does for the Apache helicopter's gunships what Dan Mills did for the infantry in Sniper One: he puts readers in the cockpit of an aircraft that requires great skill and attention to keep in the air. Macy takes readers to Afghanistan's Helmand Province: remote and mountainous, a center of the world opium traffic and chosen battleground of the Taliban. His squadron's eight Apaches faced both modern missiles and 19th-century rifles while supporting ground troops too few for a mission never clearly defined by the government. The book's climax comes when a British marine is listed as missing in action. In an unauthorized mission that reads like pulp fiction but whose details have been independently verified, Macy and another pilot fly into a Taliban fort to bring him out—dead. When the four crewmen are awarded the Military Cross, Prince Philip asks, Are you all mad? But since the days of Alexander the Great, Afghanistan has taught invaders two cruel lessons: never leave a man behind, and never count the cost. 16 pages of photos; maps. (May)
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