A Certain Brotherhood For as long as Mitch McCall could remember, he had wanted to follow in his father's footsteps as an Air Force pilot. In pilot training, Mitch nearly crashes a supersonic T-38. He walks away from the incident but can't 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 actor's 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 Vietnam's 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 insider's 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.

A Certain Brotherhood

Literature & Fiction

Jimmie H. Butler

Genre Fiction

Cricket Press

A fact-inspired novel that tells of flying unarmed Cessnas over the heavy antiaircraft defenses of the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War. These daring air attacks were shrouded in secrecy during the war and the men who labored in tropical heat and monsoon rains to keep the combat aircraft armed and ready-to-fly often did their jobs without knowing what the mission was. Almost three decades later, after reading A Certain Brotherhood, these men understood for the first time the importance of keeping their little Cessnas ready to fly over the Trail. Of special interest to aviation buffs and those interested in military history, the novel paints an accurate and vivid picture. The new Stealth edition includes a restoration of 30,000 words to the text.

A Certain Brotherhood: A Novel of the Secret War over the Ho Chi Minh Trail

Contemporary

Stealth Pr

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Books by Jimmie H. Butler