This book is so distressing, more than most war books I have read. Lots of blood and guts and shattered bodies that were sometimes left to rot for several days so they could be more easily located in the tall elephant grass – by the smell.

Yeah, I guess it does.’ He paused. ‘And when I’m flying the assaults, I start feeling brave, almost comfortable in the middle of it all. Like a hawk, maybe.’Yeah, as long as we have helicopters, Phantoms, and B-52 bombers, I thought. I said ‘Maybe the war is almost over.’” Mr. Mason’s memoire captures an accounting of the Vietnam War first through the eyes of young exuberant American boy who simply wanted to fly. In a very short but descriptive fashion we read of his training, early assignment to Ft. Belvoir – Alexandria, VA; and, then-sooner-than-hoped reassignment to the First Cavalry Division (Air Mobility). Reading through this torrential hell of the many valleys and outposts in Vietnam we the readers see the deep truth to the cynicism behind the events as they occur. Books by authors who write of their accounts of History and as they perceive it to have been all have this common thread in each of their books; Mr. Mason spent a lot of time recounting all of this and I can speculate it was for his own sanity later. The book begins with Mason's training at the Army's Primary Helicopter School at Fort Wolters, Texas. After graduation in May 1965, he eventually learns he will be sent to Vietnam, making the trip in August with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) aboard the USS Croatan. The Cavalry is initially posted to An Khe, in central South Vietnam, where Mason first experiences combat.

I hated Sherman. Now we were delinquent in our deaths. Running behind in our proper death ratio were we? Well we’ll just see about that. C’mon you guys, let’s go out there and die!” Tell Me You're Afraid", chapter thirteen, covers Mason's last months in Vietnam, July and August 1966. This book was a recommended read by a member of my book club and I am glad I took the time to read it, even though it wasn't my usual reading material. Robert Mason writes about his experience of the brutality of a war he fought when he was young. He wrote about his time in Vietnam in 1965-66. For a while those fighting thought they were winning a war that would go on for years longer and claim many more victims.Can’t blame them, can you?” said the lieutenant. “Every time they do, we clobber the sh1t out of them.’ Chapter Five, "Ia Drang", describes the increasingly hectic pace of the fighting in November 1965, during the Battle of Ia Drang. Robert Mason had over 1000 helicopter missions during his year in Vietnam. Some moments were peaceful, many were not. I first read this book years ago, and it is without a doubt one of the best war memoirs on my shelf and one to which I regularly return (as I just did for the third time, to read during a lengthy trip abroad).