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Flying Through Midnight  By  cover art

Flying Through Midnight

By: John T. Halliday
Narrated by: William Dufris
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Publisher's summary

Like Jarhead, We Were Soldiers Once..., and Young, John T. Halliday's combat memoir is gripping, novelistic, and startlingly candid, taking readers through the devastating trials and hard-won victories of flying in the Vietnam War.

The year is 1970, and John T. Halliday has just landed in the middle of the Vietnam War, primed to begin his assignment with the 606 Special Operations Squadron. But there's a catch: He's stationed in a kind of no-man's-land. No one on his base flies with ID, patches, or rank. Even as Richard Nixon firmly denies reporters' charges that the U.S. has forces in Laos, Halliday realizes that from his base in Thailand, he will be flying top-secret black ops night missions over the Laotian Ho Chi Minh Trail.

A naive yet thoughtful 24-year-old, Halliday is utterly unprepared for the horrors of war. On his first mission, Halliday's aircraft dodges more than a thousand anti-aircraft shells. Nothing is as he expected, not the operations, not the way his shell-shocked fellow pilots look and act, and certainly not the squadron's daredevil, seat-of-one's-pants approach to piloting. But before long, Halliday has become one of those seasoned and shell-shocked pilots and finds himself in a desperate search for a way to elude certain death.

A powerhouse fusion of pathos and humor, brutal realism and intimate reflection, Flying Through Midnight is a landmark contribution to Vietnam War literature, revealing previously top-secret intelligence on the 606's night missions. Fast-paced, thrilling, and bitingly intelligent, Halliday's writing illuminates it all: the heart-pounding air battles, the close friendships, the crippling fear, and the astonishing final escape that made the telling of it possible.

©2005 John T. Halliday (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"With snappy prose, machine-gun-fast dialogue, and techno-pilot speak, he recreates his forays with immediacy." (Publishers Weekly)

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What listeners say about Flying Through Midnight

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Flying Through Midnight

I served in the same unit as the author at about the same time. The exploit that is described in the last third of the book is indeed heroic. However, the rest of the descriptions of the mission and dangers of the squadron are vastly over stated. The writing is simplistic. Worst of all is the reader, who makes the story sound like a farce. I had hoped this book would explain to my wife my life in the war. She and I were so embarrassed by this audio book, I had to turn it off.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Really Annoying...Really

I am inclined to believe the reviewers who criticize the accuracy/honesty of these stories. The reason I don't recommend this audiobook is that the author sounds like a total weasel. Damn, this guy whines like a looser. Look... we all know that fighting a secret war in a complete hellhole is a hard thing to do. I have enormous respect for the people who have served this country during our most challenging times. But I feel like telling this guy to just man up. Its hot... my quarters are bad... nobody trained me... My wife didn't have any money! Good thing this guy wasn't an inlisted man with four kids carrying an M16 through rice patties. He would have melted into a puddle of tears. I am sure it doesn't help that the narrator sounds like a whiner too... bad choice.

Anyway, I am easy to please. I love all things aviation, I love history, and I love audiobooks. However, this audiobook I do not recommend.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Couldn't Stand the Whiny Tone!

As previous reviewers have noted, the author of this book often came off as being whiny and somewhat spineless. Being a former military helicopter pilot, I found the author's story very interesting and familiar... it's a great story overall. But the lavish, lengthy descriptions of the author's internal feelings, fears, and emotions were just way over done and almost nauseating to listen to. It's like he felt the need to stretch the book out by embellishing on his fears and doubts. Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with a person being sensitive and in touch with their emotions, but way to much text and time was spent in this book on them almost making it unbearable to listen to. Yes tell us you were afraid, but like any well trained military pilot, just move on and tell us how you did your job. Sheez!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Narrator spoils a great yarn

I nearly quit listening to this wonderful yarn after about 2 hours: The narrator's style was so off-putting. The gent is unable to convincingly emote incredulity, surprise,disgust,disbelief, or any similar mood. It all comes out as a cowardly whine. Unemotional dialogue was good, however. The story is a wonderfully irreverant memoir of JT's experience the Air Force at war. As a contemporary of Mr Haliday, but in the Navy, I can vouch for the accuracy of the "church of the Air Force," being familiar with another denomination of the same church, the Navy. The story was organized well, almost as though we were talking over a couple of Coors. As much as I enjoyed the tale in hindsight, I would not endure the narrator again, no matter how good the story seemed to be. Story: 5-stars; narration: 0-stars.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Outsdanding

This is a great book that works particularly well in the audio format. It provides a valuable insight into the struggles of a junior officer learning how to keep himself and his crew alive in combat, particularly in an environment that is totally unsupportive. This is a must listen for students of military aviation and anyone interested in the struggles of the US Air Force during the Vietnam war.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

I'm Embarrassed......

I'm honestly embarrassed for the author. I thought I was buying a book on Vietnam era Air Force Special Operations combat flying. What I got was a 15 hour whine about living conditions, faulty air conditioning, bad mattresses, knucklehead co-pilots and late paychecks.

As a former combat pilot with multiple deployments and three kids also with multiple deployments as ground fighters in the current wars, The author should be ashamed for even bringing this book to market.

Certainly, there are GREAT Air Force contributors - JFACs, A-10s and AC-130s are effective, underrated and in very high demand. Unfortunately, for most of the rest of the service, this story simply reinforces the stereotype of Air Force officers as blue-suited prima donnas with very little regard for the real warriors on the ground.

Don't waste your money or time.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Nerves of steel

This story takes the listener through the monotony and teeth-gritting terror of aviation recon missions over Vietnam War-era Laos from the 25-year-old pilot's POV. The audiobook's drawback (for me) is the reader. Reading the book traditionally would have been a lot better since the narrator has a grating habit of drawing-out his words and adding an almost "sing-song" quality to his delivery; essentially lengthening words and phrases into twice the necessary time it takes the average person to say the same thing. Other than that, once you get used to it, the story is very interesting and exciting. Four stars for content!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Flying Through Midnight

This is a gripping, moving and fascinating book. I recommend it for anyone who enjoys military history and wants to study it by living though an extremely perilous experience. The frustrations of Vietnam and sometime the irritating psychological weakness, of the author are well explained. Also there is some advice on how to be a great pilot which would also be good advice on how to be good at most if not all of life's endeavors.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

The most bizarre tale of Vietnam war service

The story is kind of fragmented in the beginning and seems to have no direction but winds up being tied together neatly in the end. If these events actually happened it is a fantastic story of amazing airmanship. If they didn't actually happen then the author took a couple too many hits of really good acid before he wrote it down. A lot of the story leads the reader to question the legitimacy of the events as they are portrayed. However, in any event it is an entertaining story although the voice actors voice and much of the narrative was just a little too whiny for me.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

awesome

this is simply the best book greatest story and most wonderful narrator I've experienced on audible.

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1 person found this helpful