The Pinnacle: A Memoir - Tapa dura

In BingamanÕs stellar memoir, his boyish obsession with flight blossoms into a grueling but rewarding career in the U.S. military, leading him into the uncertainties of war. Bingaman returns to his Iowa roots in this collection of anecdotes, reminiscences and close calls among fighter pilots and their peers. Recounting first his time in England as an American airman in a NATO squadron, the narrative covers his time in Oregon, the Midwest and Vietnam, detailing the operationsÑparticularly the idiosyncrasies and frustrationsÑof military programs and the officers that oversaw them. Well-paced and written in economical prose, BingamanÕs retelling of his past is at once richly personal and broadly historical, sacrificing neither breadth nor depth to convey specific bits of information as well as the zeitgeist of the time. A sensitive, astute contribution to the history of the armed forces. ÑKirkus Review

Hal Bingaman, a boy from Iowa, went to the sound of airplanes. In 1947, age 17, he flew a small fabric plane for the first time. Five years later he climbed into a fighter as a pilot in the US Air Force. Bingaman begins with a foreign assignment flying in an American NATO squadron. It was the "furious fifties" of The Cold War, and he reflects on fascinating moments as a pilot, sustained by a devoted family and committed by oath to defend free world values. In due course he and his fighter clan penetrated North Vietnam's massive arsenal from the USSR and Red China. The Pinnacle is a touching recall of actions and lethal names: Yen Bai, Viet Tri, Thud Ridge, Red River and Hanoi. Hal returns to personalities and perilous missions--one of them life changing. In this half-century recalled, preeminent is a family shaped by dynamic life.