Hit My Smoke: Forward Air Controllers in Southeast Asia Review

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(More customer reviews)Jan has done an outstanding job telling the slow and fast FAC stories from SEA. I am proud to recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about forward air controller operations durng the Vietnam War.

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The Forward Air Controller came into his own during the 1960s and 1970s air war inSoutheast Asia. In Vietnam, FACs were an indispensable part of the air war -- the link between forces on theground and strike aircraft, "the hub around which the delivery of all in-country ordnance is dependent."Because of the terrain, the Forward Air Controller was a necessity. Author Jan Churchill states . . . the cost to the U.S. was devastating, not only because of the thousands ofAmericans killed or wounded, but also because of the money spent, and the divisiveness amongst theAmerican public on the home front. For the U.S. Air Force alone, 2,118 personnel were killed, 3,460 werewounded, and 2,257 aircraft were destroyed. . . . And 338 USAF Forward Air Controllers were lost in battlein the skies over Southeast Asia.

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Tree of Smoke: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)I was very disappointed. I'd read Angels years ago and had wanted to get back to Johnson. My qualms are not with the writing--Johnson is a gifted stylist and you must be careful not to gloss over certain passages or paragraphs which are dense philosophical insights wrapped in great prose and at times poetry. Nor with the politics--those dismissing the book for its lack of aviation verisimilitude or because it wasn't as good a Vietnam book as some others, are evaluating an apple as an orange.
My disappointment is with the characters and the plot. This is at heart an intellectual work: it ruminates and dazzles, but the characters remain distant and abstract, and each time I became caught up in a subplot, it would be discarded. It was a novel that made me think--but I also wanted to feel.
Skip Sands is the fulcrum around which the novel moves, but I never was able to fully grasp his character--or care about him. And, while he thinks a lot, he doesn't do very much.
Take my review, however, with a grain of salt. I've seen some reviewers refer to Tolstoy, and I have to admit, I felt the same way about Sands as I did about Pierre in War and Peace.

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