“Charlie” Brown’s Vietnam Journal: A Tactical Airlift Pilot’s View of the War records the 1970-1971 years of Garnett C. Brown, Jr., or “Charlie Brown,” as his flying cronies called him. During that year, he flew the C-123, a tactical airlifter, a plane that hauled the “beans, bacon, and bullets of war” in all manner of weather, sometimes against ferocious ground fire, often in old—and always unarmed—aircraft. His Vietnam journal is based on 59 combat missions involving over 300 sorties and 350+ hours of flying time. While the book discusses aspects of tactics, the politics of Vietnamization, accident investigations, and hostile action, it is primarily an account of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. It does not question the war nor make moral judgments about U.S. involvement.
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