Zero Dark Thirty

Chronicles the experiences of marine aviator Captain Sam Brantley throughout the Vietnam War and his struggle living in post-war America, detailing his exposure to jungle warfare from varying viewpoints.

A small press in Oregon produces a Vietnam War memoir of great value. Brantley, aviation-struck in the 1950s, became a marine aviator in the '60s. He flew A-4 Skyhawks over South Vietnam in peace and war, then served as a forward observer for tactical strikes. That involved working with a marine rifle battalion and going out with them at the ungodly hours of the morning that give the book its title. After the war, Brantley left the military, but the war did not leave him. He vividly describes the price of being a square peg in a round hole when everybody is trying to forget the war and at worst trash and at least ignore the men who fought it. Although the A-4 is still, nearly 50 years after its first flight, in service in a surprising number of air forces, very little has been written about it. Nor have marine forward observers in Vietnam gotten much attention. Both the historical and the autobiographical material in it recommend this superior book. Roland Green
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