Book Review
Naked In Da Nang
A Forward Air Controller In Viet Nam
By Mike Jackson and Tara Dixon-Engel
Forward by Frank Borman
“Naked in Da Nang is a tribute to all the men who flew and fought”
Brig. Gen. Steve Richie, USAF (Ret.)
I appreciate well-written books about aviation, especially when the author can put the reader in the cockpit during the action. This is one of those books.
The book begins with the author waiting to except an award, seated in the Veterans Hall in Columbus, Ohio. The story unfolds as a flashback, starting with his arrival in Viet Nam, as he steps off an airliner at Cam Ranh Bay into a world unlike anything he had ever known. Two weeks later that same green kid started the first of his 210 combat missions, climbing into his twin-engine O-2A, pushing up the throttles, and coolly initiated a takeoff roll that would place him directly over some of the most heavily defended turf in the history of warfare.
The job description for a FAC Pilot as described by the author,…. “FACing was not a job for the faint of heart or the slow of wit or, in my case, the sound of mind. FACs hugged the Earth, plodding along at ridiculously low levels to direct air strikes, observe troop movements, gather intelligence, and/or choreograph search-and-rescue missions. The FAC had to be a master of multitasking long before computers popularized the term. We were the traffic cops of Southeast Asia, telling everyone where to go, when to go, how to get there, and what to do once they were there. We were everybody’s eyes and ears, everybody’s link to one another”
The author shares many of his experiences, in the air and on the ground, good and bad, serious and funny, and a lot about himself in the process, as he weaves his personal history throughout the story. He gets into some of the politics of the time, hard not to do when talking about that war, while keeping the dialog with the reader upbeat and fast paced, but always giving the reader as much as he can about living and fighting the war in Viet Nam.
The story chronicles the author’s experiences of the 366 days he spent in combat 1971-72, which included the massive NVA Easter Offensive. He was also part of the team of FACs who managed the rescue of BAT-21, immortalized in the movie of the same name.
A damn good read…… Jack Mugan
