Back in the World: Chickenhawk's Life after Vietnam

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Here is the triumphant sequel to Robert Mason's bestselling account of his service as a chopper pilot in Vietnam. Chickenhawk: Back in the World is a moving, no-holds-barred post-Vietnam memoir that reveals the war's shattering legacy in the heart and mind of a returning vet. When Robert Mason's first book was published in 1983, it was hailed as one of the finest personal evocations of Vietnam ever to appear in print. In fact, Chickenhawk is still in print, a book that continues to serve as a testament for an ...
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Overview

Here is the triumphant sequel to Robert Mason's bestselling account of his service as a chopper pilot in Vietnam. Chickenhawk: Back in the World is a moving, no-holds-barred post-Vietnam memoir that reveals the war's shattering legacy in the heart and mind of a returning vet. When Robert Mason's first book was published in 1983, it was hailed as one of the finest personal evocations of Vietnam ever to appear in print. In fact, Chickenhawk is still in print, a book that continues to serve as a testament for an entire generation. But not even Mason's splendid debut will prepare you for the authority of Chickenhawk: Back in the World, his harrowing quest to find "the most significant thing I lost in that war - peace." Although Mason's return was at first promising - after leaving active combat duty he began instructing future helicopter pilots - it quickly spiraled downward: into bouts of panic and increasingly heavy drinking, adulterous love affairs, jobs he could never keep. At the spiral's bottom lay an epic ocean voyage in a small boat. Destination: Colombia; cargo: marijuana; payoff: capture and a twenty-month prison term. Mason recounts these events and his gradual healing from the wounds of Vietnam with caustic honesty, in powerful prose that conveys both the texture of despair and the hope that kept him going as he tried to maneuver through his own personal minefield. Above all, he writes with a bitter wisdom that makes this book an anthem for all those vets who lost a piece of themselves in Southeast Asia - and have spend a long, hard time trying to get it back.
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
This affecting sequel to Chickenhawk , a 1983 memoir of Vietnam, covers Mason's postwar life and his struggle with the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: overwhelming restlessness, panic attacks and inability to hold a job. After finding relief in writing about his tour as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, he then took a major misstep by joining a drug-smuggling venture that involved a sailboat voyage across the Caribbean. Caught by U.S. customs authorities, Mason found himself facing the shame of trial and the terror of prison. During this critical period, he received the news that Viking had accepted the book in hand for publication. Thus: ``While I was experiencing the highest moment of my life, I was also experiencing the lowest moment of my life.'' Mason has a powerful personal tale that should have wide appeal. His account of the smuggling misadventure and his imprisonment in Florida are searing. (Mar.)
John Mort
Mason's first book, "Chickenhawk" (1983), portrayed combat helicopter sorties with such visceral detail that it quickly established itself as one of the five or six best memoirs of the Vietnam War. This sequel is an autobiography covering the years 1966 through 1992, during which time Mason fought off alcoholism and drug dependency and struggled to provide for himself and his family with a number of crazy schemes. As the 1970s ended he was flat broke and decided to write about his war experiences. Then he despaired of publication and embarked to Columbia on a marijuana-smuggling mission, a voyage he renders here in epic detail. Mason was intercepted in South Carolina just at the point of delivery and incarcerated for two years: his prison scenes are sheepish and amusing. At that worst moment of his life, when Mason thought he had unpardonably embarrassed his long-suffering parents and feared he might lose his aptly named wife, Patience, "Chickenhawk" sold and Mason became a celebrity. While the woes of Vietnam veterans are, perversely, a sort of promotional item here, Mason's troubles seem to be those of any ne'er-do-well, and his book falls in the tradition of many another American tale of rags to riches. In the end, he is "just like everybody else. Back in the world." So his is a song of gratitude: wild, optimistic, and quite charming.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780670848355
  • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
  • Publication date: 3/1/1993
  • Pages: 400
  • Product dimensions: 1.00 (w) x 1.00 (h) x 1.00 (d)

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Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Review
  • Posted March 23, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    Hitting 'rock-bottom' and getting back up again

    'Chickenhawk:Back in the World' picks up exactly where Mason's first book leaves off. Briefly, Mason starts off relating that upon his return of his 1 year tour of Vietnam as a chopper pilot 'Sept. 1965-Aug. 1966' he becomes a helicopter instructor pilot. This ends quickly after he is tormented by severe P.S.T.D 'hallucinations, panic attacks, depression, insomnia' quits, and leaves the military. In the back drop of authoring his eventually best selling book, he slips into drug and alcohol addiction and adultry 'his wife, aptly named 'Patience' stays with him and eventually authors her own book called 'Vietnam:A Woman's Guide'' and jobs doomed to fail 'one was as a mirror manufacturer'. Mason, doubting his book will ever make it and on the verge of financial ruin, meets 2 misfits that con him into coming with them on a small boat called the 'Nemaste' bound for the Colombian Coast and 3,500 lbs. of marijuana to smuggle back. Mason graphically recounts the Carribean voyage, picking up the dope, getting busted upon reentering U.S. waters, and receiving 2 years at Eglin, a minimum security prison in Florida. It is in Eglin that Mason learns that his 1st book is a best seller. The book ends with some major relevations of Mason's feelings of the Vietnam War, his thoughts of the causes of P.S.T.D. and his book 'Weapon' that he writes 2 years after his release. I would like to end this review with just 2 of the many amazing stories Mason writes in 'Back in the World'. The 1st is about how the U.S. government manufacturers crimes. Mason meets a guy in jail named 'Danny', a pilot, who tells a story that he was approached by 2 guys that offer him $10,000 to simply test drive a brand new DC-6. If Danny likes the plane, they will pay another $90,000 to fly in contraband from South America. Danny test flies the plane, accepts the 10K from the 2 guys, and goes home to discuss the story with his wife. The next day, he returns the money to the 2 guys and tells them 'no deal' (something Mason points out he wished he did in his ill-fated boat ride to Colombia). A year later, Danny was arrested and convicted of conspiracy. He got 5 years. The 2 guys were DEA agents and Danny's crime was that he failed to inform the authorities about the offer these guys made. Finally, there is the bone-chilling story of 'Johnson' the Navy Seal and professional assassin, who wouldn't say why he was at Eglin, but tells Mason that he almost strangled his wife to death, has no friends, likes to kill, and that his 'employer' (the U.S. Government) will be getting him out any day, because there is 'a job' coming up. Mason listens to Johnson's stories of personal assassinations in Viet Nam that he carried out as part of the infamous 'Phoenix Program' (this was a program the U.S. Gov't carried out in conjunction with the Navy Seal team plotted in the U.S. by the 'Rand Corporation' whereupon Communist Viet Cong village elders, teachers or leaders were murdered. Mason relates how Johnson claims that the government will get him out in 2 days so that he can 'execute' a job that has come up. Sure enough, 2 days later, Johnson was out. Scary! there are mant stories like this and I actually liked this book more than the first one. Very enjoyable reading!

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