Back in the World: Chickenhawk's Life after Vietnam

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!