Forward Air Controllers had one of the most important jobs in Vietnam. They made sure that troops got airpower delivered exactly where they needed it, and not off in the jungle or on friendly positions. With a load of smoke rockets and a great radio network, FACs coordinated the delicate dance of getting bombs on target.

Harrison has a clean style that captures the chaos and complexity of his job, while providing enough context to follow along. Flying low and slow in OV-10 Broncos, his pilots made sure the fast-movers knew where to put their bombs. He also has plenty of 'life in Vietnam' stories, including a madcap attempt to get a pair of cobras out of his hooch's bunker that involved calling in the Green Berets.

All of this makes for a far above average memoir, but where this book gets truly nuts is when Harrison is seconded to MACV-SOG towards the end of his tour. He was shot down supporting operations in Cambodia and hid overnight in a bamboo grove while NVA troops hunted him. Back in the cockpit, on another mission, Harrison landed his OV-10 on a jungle road to pull out a SOG team that had been blown and was out of helicopter range for extraction. This is the kind of thing that gets you the Medal of Honor (Bernard F. Fisher got one extracting a downed pilot with his Skyraider under similar circumstances), but because it was all classified at the time, Harrison got nothing at all.

There were a lot of courageous men in Vietnam. I feel confident in calling Harrison a Hero-with-a-capital-H.