BONNIE-SUE: A Marine Corps Helicopter Squadron in Vietnam
BONNIE-SUE is one of the most compelling books about commitment and sacrifice by Marines for their fellow Marines during the mid-1960s. Every chapter contains poignant accounts of the courage, compassion, drama, humor, success, and tragedy associated with close combat. Written by Marine helicoper pilot Marion F. Sturkey, this story brings the term air-ground-team into its proper perspective. This is a book about commitment. It should be read by all Marines. --Marine Corps GazetteThere is no better book about the Marine helicopter war in Vietnam. One does not yawn while reading this book. It is a compelling and vivid picture of what it was like to be a pilot or combat aircrewman in Southeast Asia. Accurate and factual, Sturkey captures the times: the turbulent 1960s, the moods, fears, and humor of young Marines who derseved better than what their leaders in Washington sent them into. BONNIE-SUE is a classic tale of the Marines and their particular brand of flying. It rises above the mud of war and takes the reader on an inspiring mission with professional and courageous men. --Leatherneck MagazineThis is our story, told some twenty to thirty years later but as chilling and touching to us who were there as if it took place yesterday. The author sets the stage culturally and historically with a prologue that begins during the first millennium B.C. and marches the reader smartly through the Chinese, Japanese, and French occupations of Vietnam. Then begins the heart of the book - what it was like to fly the workhorse helicopters. Sturkey serves up a compelling mixture of anecdotes, facts, criticism, conjecture, philosophy, terror, and survival that takes the reader along both in the cockpit and on the ground with the Infantry. He ends with a personal retrospective -- what did it all mean. --Marine Corps Aviation Association