Super Slick: Life and Death in a Huey Helicopter in Vietnam

Weill (In Marcy’s Shadow) and Feigel recount the latter’s Vietnam War story in this by-the-numbers memoir. Feigel was drafted into the Army in February 1969 at 21, and, following basic training, went through advanced training in helicopter repair. In November, he reported to the 336th Assault Helicopter Company in the Mekong Delta, where he worked repairing and maintaining helicopters. Two months later, Feigel volunteered to fly a maintenance mission and subsequently decided he preferred being in the air to working as a “hangar rat.” Going on to serve the rest of his tour of duty as a crew chief, he took part in scores of missions, many of them dangerous and more than a few of them lethal. The authors recount many details about those flights and just about every other aspect of Fiegel’s tour of duty; evocative descriptions of helicopter-related battle action are complemented by largely unrevealing accounts of everyday life in the warzone. Novelistic in its presentation, with many reconstructed quotes and a few sidebars and flash-forwards (including a brief overview of Feigel’s post-war struggles with PTSD), this tells a familiar Vietnam War story solidly enough. It’s best suited for completists. (July)