Published: 1 December 2008
Air & Space Power Journal - Winter 2008
Phantom Reflections: The Education of an American Fighter Pilot in Vietnam
by Mike McCarthy. Praeger/Greenwood Publishing Group (http://www.praeger.com),
88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881, 2006, 200 pages, $44.95
(hardcover).
Phantom Reflections explains how a conservative young fighter pilot went to
Vietnam full of visions of glory and patriotism to fight for a just cause yet,
after retiring as an Air Force colonel, came to feel that it was all for
naught—a waste. Nevertheless, he says it was the “defining experience” of his
life.
Mike McCarthy produces this memoir in a splendid writing style. Born in upstate New York into a physician’s family, he got his college education (majoring in business) in Florida, but he claims that he had decided to be a fighter pilot at age 10. McCarthy entered the Air Force and graduated from pilot training at Webb AFB, Texas, as the Vietnam War moved towards its climax. He went through crew training in Florida in the F-4 Phantom, arriving at Ubon, Thailand, as part of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing late in 1967.
McCarthy recounts his eight months at Ubon in some detail, describing the recurring fear of going to North Vietnam and the excitement involved. It certainly was no picnic, and he had several close brushes with death. Yet, through it all he had no doubt that he was engaged in a just war and that he was doing the right thing for his country. Because of the bombing halt in March 1968, McCarthy could not record 100 “counter” missions to the North although he had combat aplenty. He thus had to spend the last four months of his Southeast Asia tour working on the Seventh Air Force staff at Saigon. Among the tours after he returned to the “world” was an instructor job at Homestead AFAB, Florida, and the one he cites as the best of his entire career—an exchange tour with the Canadians, flying the CF-104. The author also had a fine experience stationed in Scandinavia and a not-so-fine one (albeit highly educational) at the Pentagon.
Only with the passing of years did McCarthy come to perceive the futility of the Vietnam War, a realization that has caused him to have doubts about the current conflict in Iraq. The book is so well written that I highly recommend it to air warriors/scholars who want an evening of entertainment. If they wish to learn more about the technologies, tactics, and the history of the air war over North Vietnam, then Marshall Michel’s two works, The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle and Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965–1972 might better serve that purpose. (Like McCarthy, Michel was an F-4 pilot in that conflict.)
Dr. David R. Mets
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
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