Experience Palace Cobra: A Fighter Pilot In The Vietnam Air War Drafted By Ed Rasimus File PDF

tales of the Vietnam Air War Almost gave this book a four star rating, and asked myself why not a five Couldn't think of a reason! This is Ed Rasimus' second book.
The first book chronicled his first tour in Vietnam flying the Fas part of Wild Weasel teams, This book covers his second tour, where he has transitioned to flying FPhantoms as part of the same strategy, Wild Weasel teams were designed to identify and target North Vietnamese SAM surface to air missile sights and destroy them to protect other air missions,

Plenty of recounts of the excitement of flying missions while avoiding these missiles, flak and enemy fighters mixed in with what life was like living at air bases in Thailand.
Raismus also gives his opinion on the bureaucratic management of the war, and has an appendix listing the aircrews that were shot down during these engagements, The flying portions are not so technologically overdetailed to lose readers, but still interesting to those more familiar with the cockpit, Now I have to find his first book and read it! Actual ,stars.

I've been reading up on the air war in Vietnam, I flew USAF fighters foryears but never saw combat, and it's a hole in my experience, Ed Rasimus writes about flying the way I try to write about flying, in a way that explains things simply to readers who don't share a military or aviation background, yet is able to hold the attention of fellow military pilots.


This is Rasimus' second memoir of the Vietnam air war, He served twomission combat tours there, the first flying singleseat Fs in the lates, the second flying the twoseat Fin the last year of the war.
This memoir covers the second tour I will probably read the earlier memoir soon, since I'm a big singleseater fan,

I was most impressed by Rasimus' honest, straightforward approach to writing about his marriage and sexual activities while away in Thailand, Most aviators turned writers are too prudish to cover this aspect of the fighter pilot life,

I was also impressed by how well Rasimus integrated the larger story of the Vietnam air war, the decisionmaking and strange restrictions imposed by political and military leadership, by writing about it as it affected the men he flew with.
No polemics, no rants, but the kind of knowledge military pilots would have had to understand to do their job, because higher level decisionmaking had a direct impact on how Rasimus and his peers fought the war: fighter pilots and backseaters were the only ones taking the war to the enemy in North Vietnam, and the effect of restrictions was immediate, severe, and often fatal.


Another Goodreads reviewer commented that anyone interested in pursuing a career as a military fighter pilot would get a lot out of this book, I think that's a good point, Sure, much has changed. Then again, not much has changed at all, The lieutenants and captains who lived through Vietnam were the majors and lieutenant colonels running flight training and fighter squadrons in my day, and everything we did was based on what the USAF had learned in that war.
That generation is living in retirement now, but when I myself retired inthe USAF and the fighter pilot business was still modeled very much on the way we did things in Vietnam.
Add lessons learned in Desert Storm and subsequent campaigns, and I bet it's still much the same,

A very good read, and I'm looking forward to Rasimus' earlier memoir, Not as good as "When Thunder Rolled", but still enjoyable, I should have read the book before this one first, Maybe it would have christened me on Rasimus' style better than this one, While I enjoyed many parts of this book I really felt he rambled on too much, He dragged his stories out instead of cutting to the chase, The part of the book covering pre Vietnam pre his next tour seemed extensive, too extensive, Good details for pilots or those training or wishing to be a pilot though, I imagine it is very good for that demographic, This book is about a fighter pilot's SECOND tour in the Veitnam war, The first one is in the book "When Thunder Rolled" Flying the Fhe once again dodges SAMs, A must read for every tactical aviation enthusiast and Southeast Asia conflict buff, Loved it from the start to the end, A fascinating first hand account of the latter days of the air war in Vietnam, written about the Author's second tour in Vietnam, Ed Rasimus had written a book about his first tour as well which I will definitely be checking out I read this one first as I wanted to get some insight on what flying an FPhantom is actually like, considering it is one of my favourite aircraft.


And boy was I not disappointed, I immensely enjoyed reading about the foible, strengths, and weaknesses of the Phantom, and though there is quite a bit of technical jargon and abbreviations, there is a glossary that can aid the uninitiated.


Of course the Phantom aspect really grabbed my attention, it is most certainly not the focus of this book, Nor is the focus about getting bogged down in the politics of the war though there is a small amount contained within the pages as well, No, what this is really about is the story of a man who loves to fly, and his experiences of doing so during Vietnam, The result is a personal story of some triumph, disappointment, brutal honesty, hilarity, compassion and above all else, what it means to be human during periods of conflict.
A good read.

Recommended reading even though it strays at times into areas better left to those it involved, The politics of war are unusually the cause of war, Palace Cobra follows Rasimum's second tour in Vietnam as an Fduring the Linebacker campaigns, In the years since When Thunder Rolled, Rasimus had been an instructor pilot and personnel officer, and he wanted to get back to flying fighters while there were still fighters to fly, even if that meant facing flak and SAMs again, and wrecking his marriage in the process.


Bythe war had become thoroughly routinized, Bureaucratic absurdities proliferated in the air bases, which were much the same as they had been in, Rasimus slotted right in, becoming a hunterkiller pilot who specialized in

going after SAM sites with cluster bombs,

In Palace Cobra, Rasimus opens up a little, speculating about how the war was fought, the ability of airpower to force a decision, and the culture of fighter pilots in Thailand in thes.
It's amazing how much more gregarious and personable the war becomes when there's another person sitting in the same cockpit as you, making the same desperate prayers about flak.


Having read them back to back, I recommend both of Rasimus's books, They're similar, of course, but just difference enough it's worth reading both, An account of the end of the Vietnam war by a Ffighter pilot, More a collection of short stories ordered in somewhat a chronological order, It was interesting to me only because of my interest in aviation, Great inside look at the air war over Vietnam as the war drew to a close, A little of a let down after "When Thunder Rolled" which, in my opinion, had a lot more tension, Still, Rasimus is a great writer, Easy to read and he blends the technical details with the story so well it's almost seamless, Palace Cobra picks up where Ed Rasimus's critically acclaimed When Thunder Rolled left off, Now he's flying the FPhantom and the attitude is still there,

In the waning days of the Vietnam War, Rasimus and his fellow pilots were determined that they were not going be the last to die in a conflict their country had abandoned.
They were young fighter pilots fresh from training and experienced aviators who came back to the war again and again, not for patriotism, but for the adrenaline rush of combat.
From the bathhouses and barrooms to the prison camps of North Vietnam, this is a gripping combat memoir by a veteran fighter pilot who experienced it all.


The wry cynicism of a combat aviator will give readers insights into the Vietnam experience that haven't been available before, and the heartstopping action will keep readers turning the pages all night.
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