I finally wrote it down,
‘Toon Daddy is published
For those of you who have known me for a while, you’ve probably heard pieces of this story. A year in Vietnam. A nickname the men in my platoon gave me. A day in November 1968 that I still measure the rest of my life against.
It is all here.
‘Toon Daddy: Twelve Months in Vietnam as a Commissioned Officer and Combat Helicopter Pilot is now available on Amazon as a Kindle eBook, with the corrected softcover arriving by Friday, May29th.
I’ll be honest with you about what it is and isn’t. It is not the Great American Novel. It is a short memoir about 1/80th of my life but the most important 1/80th, the year that made me who I became. There’s no blood and gore, no score-settling, unfortunately there is tragedy. What there is: the truth about what it was like to be a twenty-one-year-old lieutenant leading a platoon of highly intelligent warrant officer pilots who were constitutionally suspicious of anyone who hadn’t earned their respect and what it cost to earn it.
“I can tell you plainly: it happened the way he says it happened. The men were who he says they were. That day in November was exactly as bad as he says it was.”
Chief Warrant Officer Johnnie T. Wilson (Ret.), 187th, Crusaders, who wrote the foreword and has been my friend for nearly sixty years.
The book was written for people who weren’t there — families, friends, anyone who has tried to understand why some men come home from war (regardless of which war — WWII to Afghanistan) and are never quite the same, even if they never took a bullet. Veterans will find the behind-the-scenes look familiar. Everyone else will find it honest.
There are also a few moments I can only describe as Divine Interventions. You’ll know them when you get there.
Yes, I’m proud of it. And yes, at my age, finally being a published author is not nothing.
I hope you’ll read it. When you do, please leave a comment in the Amazon review section.
Pat