Thud Ridge Book

A great book describing the day to day life of a fighter pilot. It is also a no nonsense look at politicians' ignorant attempt to run a war, by imposing rules and regulations that effectively "tie" the soldier's hands behind his back, and force him to fight at an unfair disadvantage. After reading this book I lost all respect for people like Bill Moyers. He was very outspoken about the way that the Bush Administration ran a war, but, as Johnson's press secretary, what was he doing with Johnson, McNamara at their Tuesday tea's, planning routes and missions for our men 14000 miles away? There were only one or two occasions where military planners were invited to these luncheons. Johnson once boasted that "a soldier couldn't even take a shit, without his say so." I never had respecto for LBJ, but this book angered me, because he really didn't care about the F-105 pilots flying his, known routes into RP6 to bomb Hanoi. He didn't care that the NVA knew exactly the direction and altitudes of the pilots coming in on their bombing runs. Col. Broughton does an excellent job of describing a tactical run on Hanoi. He took many of the transcripts from a tape recorder that he had placed in his aircraft. He tells the story of the shoot-down of CMOH recipient Leo Thorsness and his WSO. An excellent book. Excellent treatise on the foolishness of politicians involving themselves in combat planning.