Post by Don Gieseke on Nov 20, 2015 17:04:08 GMT -6
Prowler Ball is written as a novelized autobiography about a time of challenge and conflict. It brings to life the experience of a young naval flight officer sent off to the Gulf of Tonkin to support the air war in Vietnam. The book began as a series of notes and sketches written by the author during his combat cruise to Vietnam during 1972-73. It is the story of young men thrust into combat to fight what is perhaps America’s least popular conflict. Unlike the fighting heroes of the “Greatest Generation” these veterans suffered derision and scorn upon their return to American society.
This book is a chronicle of the last few months of that war. It was a time of intense air operations against targets in North Vietnam. The American nation had tired of the war, and dissention was rife at home. Still, young men volunteered for the naval service and put themselves through the rigors of training to learn to fly sophisticated jet airplanes in the defense of their country. No amount of politically correct smugness can detract from the courage and heroism that they displayed in the skies over Vietnam.
Though a novel, the chapters in Prowler Ball are filled with of true incidents and details of missions that were carried out during September 1972 through the middle of 1973, by the members of an elite electronic warfare squadron embarked aboard USS Enterprise. The missions culminated in December 1972 with the airstrikes known as Linebacker II