Customer Reviews

The Doom Pussy

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I flew US Army helicopters, UH-1H and UH-1C gunships, for the 4th Infantry Division in the Vietnam Central Highlands in '67-'68. We circulated a copy of "The Doom Pussy" around the unit, and it became a touchstone for many of our conversations. In fact, the cry a character in the book used when starting a takeoff, "Stony Burke out of chute five!", cribbed from an early Jack Lord (Hawaii 5-0) TV show about rodeo riders, was used by gunship pilot Gambler Deuce when he began his takeoff.
It is a fascinating look at the effort of pilots in the early days of the conflict, when the escalation was in its early days and both sides were trying stuff out to see what worked. Although death is not a stranger in "The DOOM Pussy," in fact, that was a much less violent phase of the war, sort of "Terry and the Pirates" on steroids. Later, when the technology matured and the numbers of fighters increased substantially, things got much more deadly.
However, the thing that struck me about the book was the tone, clearly an echo from World War II. Some of the individual words were modern for those times, but the attitude towards the "adventure" was a rousing "let's go get 'em" sort of thing that by '67 was already obviously naive. Looking at the history of the author, coming of age and popularity as an actor at the height of the war, the reason for this becomes apparent.
So it serves as a dual history, showing on one hand the actual events of flying missions over South Vietnam in the early '60s, and on the other hand clearly reflecting some of the attitudes that got us in so deeply in the first place. For this unique combination it is unsurpassed.

This was one of the first books written about Air Force experiences in VN. I remember reading it while stationed at Vinh Long in the Delta. We were flying helicopters and wondered if the world yet knew what we were doing in the Mekong Delta with the 13th Aviation Battalion. The war as this woman author portrays was still starting as she wrote, and hungry war correspondents were trying to get their new books out to describe "The Only War We've Got" before it was over. No one knew then that the Vietnam war would go on and on, over a decade. The two colorful pilots she is friends with were typical of those early warriors from the Cold War era who were yearning for a real fight, after all those years waiting for something to happen with the Communist threat. My book, "OUTLAWS IN VIETNAM" describes flying Huey D-models later in 1966-67, just before TET. When we read this author's work while in country, we were trying to see if anyone had yet captured the flying experience occurring in the Vietnam conflict.