Campaigning: The Journal of the Joint Forces Staff College 14 April 2022

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Book Review

Along for the Ride:

Navigating Through the Cold War, Vietnam, Laos and More

by Henry Zeybel

Reviewed by1

Grant Highland, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, JFSC

In his book, Along for the Ride: Navigating Through the Cold War, Vietnam, Laos and More, 

author and retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Henry Zeybel, frames his Cold War experiences 

this way:

Writing beats going to a “shrink.” I’ve tried the two. Done properly, both take years of 

self-analysis and both reveal great wads of hidden knowledge . . . My aim as a writer has 

been to tell entertaining stories . . . Cynics claim anyone who writes for any reason other 

than making as much money as possible is an idiot. If that’s true, sit back and prepare to 

read the remembrances of a fool.

From those simple, descriptive sentences an “entertaining story” does indeed unfold. Zeybel’s 

story captures a period of history and an era all too quickly becoming lost to the failings of a 

fool’s memory and the immediacy of present impulses.

The tone of Zeybel’s memoir convincingly captures the periods of his life. As he advanced in his 

career, he progressed from the youthful braggadocio of his early years in the Air Force and 

Vietnam missions to the more measured and considerate requirements of leadership positions. 

Toward the end of his second career in writing, Zeybel transitions to the reflective and quasipensive tones of an older man tutoring college athletes. The fluid temporal structure of the book 

can leave the reader disoriented, but the pitch-perfect tone of voice that resonates with each of 

the stages of his life ground the reader in the eras. His honest depiction of the various and 

shifting attitudes and perspectives that constitute universal human experience of life and aging 

are one of the most compelling aspects of his work and create a sense of honesty that compels 

reading in a way missing from other memoirs. 

The quality of Zeybel’s voice also creates an artistic juxtaposition against the Cold War era that 

evokes the unique moods associated with the geopolitical phenomena. From Desert Storm in 

Iraq, and then Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom in the 

context of a post-9/11 world, his Cold War story contrasts with the later events in an evocative 

way. While he avoids direct comparison between the two eras, his reflection upon both from the 

1 The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of Joint 

Forces Staff College, National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Campaigning: The Journal of the Joint Forces Staff College 14 April 2022

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perspectives of his different roles offers a unique and poignant comparative lens. The first-person 

narrative perspective enables Zeybel to avoid analytical discourse, allowing readers to draw their 

own comparisons and conclusions, which feels empowering and compelling in its own right.

Zeybel’s work is especially effective as it recounts his aviation experiences. One passage 

captures the essence of all the other aviation anecdotes. In this excerpt, he describes a night 

mission over Vietnam after a surface-to-air missile (SAM) was launched on his AC-130 Spectre 

gunship:

“It’s coming in the ramp,” he said. “Dive. Dive.”

“Hang on,” Holley said, “we’re going down.”

Based on my instrument readings in the booth, from an altitude of 9500 feet, Holley 

rolled the gunship into a 135-degree bank, practically upside down, and then arced the 

nose earthward in a 4000-foot-per-minute dive. The maneuver was like turning over a 

dump truck and still steering it. Our turkey wasn’t designed for such a feat. Yet Holley 

did it. Maintaining a positive one-gravity load on the creaky, antiquated airframe, he 

plunged downward in open defiance of several laws of aerodynamics.

The pilot conducted this split-S maneuver in a high-wing, multi-engine gunship at night over 

mountainous terrain in hostile territory. The maneuver is breathtaking in its audacity, and Zeybel 

captures every pulse-pounding moment in exquisite detail. Readers with an aviation background 

will thoroughly enjoy the author’s riveting aerial descriptions that reek authenticity. 

Zeybel notes, the book is part catharsis and part entertainment. But throughout it is an homage to 

a life lived and the people and places that helped shape that life. While a memoir is primarily 

about telling the life story of the writer, the best memoirs, if not at least timely memoirs, remind 

the reader about something important in their own life. In the case of Along for the Ride, that 

message seems to be about personal perspective and change. A person’s perspective naturally 

changes as they age, as they transition careers, as memory fades. In Zeybel’s case the change is 

framed by the global shift from the Cold War to War on Terror. The irony, in the telling, is that 

he struggles to remember but reminds the reader of not only the experiences but what was 

important from being the man in the arena. This book is for people who never forget that to those 

daring greatly, nothing is cold and no terror unwelcome. 

Book Information:

Along for the Ride: Navigating Through the Cold War, Vietnam, Laos and More

by Henry Zeybel

Casemate Publishers, Havertown, PA, 2021, 288 pp.