A Certain Brotherhood

A Certain Brotherhood by Jimmie H. Butler. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780965539609.

A Certain Brotherhood For as long as Mitch McCall could remember, he had wanted to follow in his fathers footsteps as an Air Force pilot. In pilot training, Mitch nearly crashes a supersonic T-38. He walks away from the incident but cant shake off the resulting phobia about landings. The Vietnam War escalates, and Mitch volunteers for combat as a forward air controller. FACs fly single-engine Cessnas over enemy territory and look for targets for armed fighter aircraft. Mitch accepts the new dangers in a make-or-break attempt to beat his fears. In Thailand, he is teamed with Captain James D. (J.D.) Dalton. J.D. is a few years older than Mitch--but many years more experienced in almost everything. As a teenager, J.D. had idolized the ill-fated actor, James Dean. Now, almost a decade later, J.D. still lives by some of the actors philosophies and flies his small Cessna as if this life were just a step toward whatever comes next. In Hanoi, famed North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap is plotting a bold operation. If successful, his armies will overrun the U.S. Marines at Khe Sanh during the upcoming Tet offensive. His plan depends heavily on battle-hardened veteran Colonel Le Van Do. Le commands Battlefield C, North Vietnams secret operations in Laos. Battlefield C contains much of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and is patrolled from the air almost every day by Mitch and J.D. In late January 1968, the Communist forces launch a massive offensive during the Tet truce. The fate of thousands of American Marines at Khe Sanh depends on whether Mitch discovers the secret that Colonel Le Van Do has concealed beneath the 200-foot tall trees of the Laotian jungles. **** If someone asks me what it was like to have been there--done that, all I have to do is hand them this book. -- Charles (Chic) Randow, Nail 68 at NKP **** Jimmie H. Butler, Colonel, USAF, Retired, combined combat experience flying Cessnas over the jungles of Southeast Asia with months of research in USAF archives. The result is his third novel, A Certain Brotherhood, an exciting insiders view of the Secret War over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Combat-veteran readers of the two print editions confirm Butler got it right with an authenticity that blends fact and fiction inseparably. More than 20 photographs taken by the author, combat photographers, or photo reconnaissance aircraft are included.