Easy Target: Long, Strange Trip of a Scout Pilot in Vietnam

Tom Smith seemed an unlikely candidate to join the distinguished ranks of the Army's scouts. Although often unconventional in appearance, they have always been selected from the best and are highly prized for their mastery of the soldier's craft.
Kicked out of college, drifting along on the high times of the late sixties, Tom was tripping down the California coast in a VW bus with his flower-child girlfriend when a letter from his Uncle Sam caught up with him. "Greetings." And, so it was, next stop truly was Vietnam.
Although he discovered a ferocious warrior lurking inside his anti-establishment soul, Tom's superiors found his countercultural and rebellious ways annoying - one time nearly leading to a court martial. Still, his aerial heroics were appreciated; flying combat missions almost every day, our intrepid pilot was shot down three times and suffered numerous wounds. Along the way, he picked up a chestful of medals including the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Purple Hearts.

Flying scout helicopters in Vietnam was the aerial counterpart of walking point. Initially cast as target-spotters for gunships and air-assault forces, the scout pilots evolved into live bait as enemy weapons and tactics improved. Their small helicopters were vulnerable even to minor damage, and parachuting from a damaged bird was impossible. Casualty rates could be as high as 50%; a scout unit often resembled a WWI fighter squadron, with replacements dying almost before they could unpack. Yet fresh volunteers kept coming?even if only to stay out of the infantry. In his visceral memoir, Smith tells the familiar story of a young man who flunked out of college, sampled the 1960s counterculture and found himself first in the army, then in Vietnam. For Smith, the war was a theater of the absurd whose only meaning was survival. His narrative of low-altitude, high-risk operations in 1969-70 replicates that of others: initial confusion giving way first to proficiency and pleasure in stalking and killing anonymous enemies, later to a sense that both his skill and his luck are running out. Gritty enough to appeal to adventure fans, this memoir makes a useful contribution to a subject?American helicopter pilots in Vietnam?whose recorded history is largely still in its anecdotal stage. Photos, not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A straightforward look at the grim tour of duty of a helicopter pilot during the height of the American war in Vietnam. Smith joined the Army in the spring of 1968. A little more than a year later he was a newly minted warrant officer flying helicopters with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam. He could have spent the war flying relatively safe high-altitude command-and- control missions, but he volunteered instead to fly the much closer-to-the-action scout helicopters. ``I wanted to get into the Scouts because the flying looked like so much fun,'' he says. There was fun, but there was also a good deal of danger. Many scout pilots were killed, and Smith survived countless close calls, only to be severely injured the second time his helicopter crashed. He tells his story competently, spicing up the occasionally uninspired narrative with reconstructed dialogue and evocative depictions of Vietnam combat as seen from the pilot's seat. Least absorbing are Smith's accounts of his basic training and flight school. The heart of the book, Smith's wartime experience, is gripping: He has an eventful story to tell, and he tells it bluntly and well, venting strong opinions about the war: He strongly criticizes his superior officers for their arrogance, praises the North Vietnamese soldiers for their fortitude, and condemns the South Vietnamese military and political leaders for their lack of moral fiber. Although he fought hard and well, Smith dismisses the bloody conflict as ``a cause that had little value to anyone except a few American and Vietnamese politicians and some generals.'' Only ``the most fanatical military mentalities in our midst thought the war was worth dying for,'' he says. ``I knew I did not want to die a `worthless death' in Vietnam.'' A solid if unspectacular addition to the genre of Vietnam War memoirs. (photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

During the Vietnam War, students who left college lost their student deferments and were reclassified as available for military service. Smith, a free spirit who was suspended from college for poor attendance, failed to report for induction when called and was facing likely jail time when his brother convinced him to enlist in helicopter pilot school. A natural storyteller with a good ear for dialog, Smith recounts his typically grueling experiences in basic training, the tough and proudly elitist atmosphere in fight school, and his arrival in Vietnam. Assigned to the First Air Cavalry Division, a unit known for getting into tough scrapes, Smith becomes a scout pilot operating primarily around Tay Ninh province, which borders on Cambodia. Smith skillfully evokes the frequently terrifying combat action and the close camaraderie among pilots, though some sections are overlong and tangential. Finally, Smith's luck ran out; he was shot down and seriously injured. An excellent, unpretentious narrative, though not quite as visceral and introspective as the classic Vietnam chopper pilot memoir, Robert Mason's Chickenhawk (LJ 7/83). Recommended for public libraries.?Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.