One Flaming Hour: A Memoir of Jerry Blackbird. By Mike Blackbird. January 2015. Softcover. 266 pages. ISBN 978-0-945648-20-8. Price $15.95
The story of a Vietnam vet disoriented by what he had seen overseas, then finding a new few in a different kind of public service – politics.
Sample chapter
Returning home from Vietnam after a year of combat in 1969 when vets were being spit on.
Ten months of unemployment after serving the call of his nation.
His divorce from a young wife who didn’t understand his demons.
Then, at the bottom of despair, while hitchhiking on a Montana highway during a sub-zero winter day, turning his back on rejection, figuratively pulling up his pants and marching into his future.
– from the introduction
About One Flaming Hour:
Salvation through public service and the purging of awful sights seen during 1500 Vietnam War helicopter rescue missions before an untimely death, as told by a devoted brother, leaves a reader pondering life’s unfairness. A haunting read that will stay with you a long time.
Chris Carlson, author of Medimont Reflections
Mike Blackbird paints a vivid picture of his brother Jerry’s time as a Medivac pilot in Vietnam and contrasts it with the reality of the political system that put him and so many others in that battlefield. An optimist about our country, Blackbird tells a compelling story about politics and government in America through the lens of a blue-collar, working man made good.
Mike Kennedy, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
One Flaming Hour: A memoir of Jerry Blackbird. By Mike Blackbird; published by Ridenbaugh Press, Carlton, Oregon. 220 pages. Softcover. List price $15.95.