What makes it stand out is his genuine descriptions of air combat and air operations: he should have stuck to those more.įinally, Carroll needs practice in the art of writing fiction. None of this sets Carroll apart from an endless number of other military novels, especially those written by veterans. if you've read it once, you've read it enough times.Ĭarroll needed to ruthlessly trim away the scenes of Punk being bored, lonely, frustrated, angry, jealous, and generally miserable, while sitting in bars, canteens, mess halls, and hotels. The terminal ennui of servicemen worried about how their life takes its toll on their relationships, and the frustrations and drunken fights that amount to nothing, ultimately resolved through the shared experience of being in service together. This might have been interesting the first time I saw it, but writing about how things are boring, is, itself, boring. This is somewhat expected: veterans like to write novels where their heroes are bored out of their minds, to reflect the reality of service life. There are about three "action" sequences in the book, the last of which is magnificent, and the rest is detailing the tedious and frustrating experience of daily life in the military. Unfortunately, Carroll's book is also exactly what I expected: there are long passages that are totally pedestrian. It's this very real picture of air operations that makes Carroll's book stand out from typical fare that pays no attention to the real details. Even the radio operations procedures, like asking for "bogey dope" and reporting contacts back to the airborne controllers. It is fascinating to read about all the complexities of daily operations, such as that every aircraft type has a representative to explain its particulars as-needed to the overall commander of air wing operations. They deal with broken and malfunctioning parts, deal with rules of engagement, and keep an impossible number of factors in mind at once. Their aircraft don't do their jobs for them, they have to know their radars, missiles, and flight envelope perfectly to do their job. They have to fly with their brains, not the seat of their pants. Flying and fighting a jet is a complex endeavor: highly trained professionals need to be completely focused, or they crash their jets or lose their targets. The positive side is that this book was what I expected: having been a Tomcat backseater for fifteen years, "Mooch" describes carrier aviation as it really is. Unfortunately, Punk's War needed a few more passes before it got published. I enjoy Ward Carroll's YouTube channel, and have a lot of respect for him.
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