Homecoming: A Soldier's Story of Loyalty, Courage, and Redemption

Download or read book Homecoming: A Soldier's Story of Loyalty, Courage, and Redemption written by David Arenstam and published by . This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For two American aviators assigned to the Aerial Rocket Artillery in Vietnam, the odds for survival, the margin between life and death, is often as thin or mysterious as the dismal, gray mist that routinely lingers over the jungle treetops surrounding their makeshift airbases. During the early hours of February 4, 1968, as the Tet Offensive thunders around him, Russell Warriner, a lanky 20-year-old Huey crew chief from the foothills of the Berkshires watches as the men he routinely flies with leave in an effort to help a group of young Army Rangers. With his aircraft in pieces and his buddies in the air, the mission horns on the base blare overhead as Warriner learns that his friends and their Huey are missing. After flying search missions for nearly 36 hours, his unit locates the battered and burnedfuselage. There are three American bodies near the wreckage, but Bobby Connelly, the co-pilot, is not among the dead. For these two men, a single mission, a routine call for help, will forever link their spirits. For one, the mysterious strength of that spirit, an almost transcendent will to survive, goes back generations to a time before technology and industry. This inner strength will help one of the soldiers live to see another day. But will it be enough to bring them both home?