Stingers

Vietnam War - Helicopter Gunships

By: Fred Allen

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE VIDEO OF A VIETNAM HELICOPTER GUNSHIP IN LIVE COMBAT

Experience intense combat from the Crew Chief/Door Gunner’s seat in a Stinger helicopter gunship.The author presents this book based on his personal experiences in the Vietnam War as a 18-year-old gunship Crew Chief/Door Gunner. He wants the reader to experience what it is like to kill dozens of enemy combatants and collaterally, non-combatants. How to live with the frequent near-death experiences and the constant high probability of being killed. Endure the frequent loss of fellow soldiers in combat. Witness a young soldier losing all sense of humanity as he transforms into a warrior that thrives on killing.
The real life incidents portrays a platoon of Huey UH-1C gunships, called the “Stingers” and its elite, motivated crews. As a component of U.S. Army assault helicopter companies, the “guns” protected the Huey “slicks” as they inserted or extracted infantry troops from landing and pick up zones. The gunships often conducted “search and kill” missions and provided lifesaving protection to infantry units threatened by enemy forces.
Gunship crews were among the most lethal pilots, crew chiefs and door gunners in Army aviation. Some gunship crew chiefs had over 400 hundred personal kills. An intense warrior mentality was crucial to mission success and survival. Killing was a way of life in the guns.
One of the most decorated and experienced aviation combat units in the Vietnam War was the Stingers’ parent, the 116th Assault Helicopter Company, known as the “Hornets”. Follow the operational strategy as Army Command reassigns the Hornets from III Corps, near Saigon to Chu Lai in I Corps under the command of the 23rd Infantry Division, known as “Americal”. Experience the rapid increase of lethal enemy encounters. Americal imposed severe constraints on the Stingers in the aftermath of the My Lai massacre. The Stingers and slick platoons of the 116th, fight on.
The young combat veteran becomes “short” with just a few months left in his tour of duty. Americal reassigns the 116th to Quang Tri, one of the most dangerous places in Vietnam. The mission was to support the Laotian operation, Lam Son 719. Quang Tri was less than fifteen miles from North Vietnam. The rocket attacks on Quang Tri base camp were relentless. Soldiers became shell-shocked. War memories would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
The day finally came. The young warrior boards the Freedom Bird for the flight home. As the eastbound airliner crossed the border of South Vietnam, the returning soldiers break out into celebratory yells and relief. The onboard jubilation is short-lived. War damaged soldiers experience sudden decompression from the constant lethal threat endured for months on end. Soldiers begin to emotionally breakdown. The civilian flight attendants rush to calm the suffering heroes.
War news headlines are articulated in real-time to frame the author’s story.
The author portrays a balance of bravado militarism with the constant dilemma combat soldiers faced in Vietnam. It is a heroic endeavor to believe in upholding nationalistic pride and high principles of duty, honor and country. But when combat soldiers lose America’s support; when military morale and leadership falters; when the cause for war becomes questionable; a soldier has to find his own way to persevere and survive.
Join the author and deploy on your tour in the Vietnam War.

overall good listen and an interesting view of Vietnam

The automated neration doesn't always get the words right but overall good book and easy to figure out what was meant

Pretty standard ‘Nam memoir fare

Author and content: The book was decent enough. As far as style, content, etc. it’s more or less your average soldier in Vietnam type of stuff with various interesting vignettes. Fairly early on you realize the authors tour of duty affected him deeply and as the chapters go on that comes more and more to the forefront. I don’t know that I would go through the book a second time, but I don’t regret reading it the first time. It’s worth a listen/read if you’ve got some free time, especially if you got it on sale like I did.

Narration: Appropriate for the subject matter. Narrators voice kind of complimented the material. As with most audibles, this book was better listened to at ~2x speed because of how slow the regular narration is. Narrator talking speed is my only major complaint and that’s a consistent grievance of mine across just about every book on here that I’ve listened to. I really wish publishers would quit padding out the listening time and just have narrators talk at a normal pace.

Unvarnished account

Allen recounted his life in combat in a straight forward unapologetic style. The primary fault of this tragedy in my opinion lies squarely with LBJ and his advisers. God forbid that we ever repeat this lethal hubris.