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(More customer reviews)There have been anonymous reviews posted about Linderer's books that question his truthfulness. I'm posting this review under my own name because I was an eyewitness to some of the incidents described in Linderer's books, particularly the events of 20 Nov 68. My name is John Reid.
I served briefly in Gary Linderer's unit then transferred to B Co 101st Aviation Battalion, the unit that proveded helicopter support for Linderer's unit. I was flying as door gunner for pilot W.T. Grant (author "Wings of the Eagle) on 20 Nov 68.
Warrent Officer Grant and Captain Bill Meacham (author "Lest We Forget") piloted the two helicopters that arrived over Linderer's team shortly after they ambushed an enemy unit on 20 Nov 68. Both pilots braved enemy fire trying to extract the team with MacGuire rigs. The trees were too thick to lower ropes to the team. We could see armed enemy all around the team trying to get at them. We were hovering low enough to see that most of the team were badly wounded. Only the combined efforts of the artillery, gunships and Air Force fighter bombers, directed by LRRP commander Captain Eklund, kept the enemy at bay and saved the wounded survivors of the team. I personally witnessed this from a helicopter just above the action (off the gun target line) and heard most of the radio communications that day.
Pilots Grant and Meachum spent most of the day ferrying in a reaction force to rescue the teams survivors and then extracting them all later in the day. The battle began at ten in the morning and we brought out the last friendlies well after dark. We took enemy fire every time we flew close to the ground that day. Flying in and out of the landing zone I saw many dead enemy soldiers on the slope below the LRRP team. On the missions we flew after dark that day, the muzzle flashes and tracers of multiple enemy weapons trying to shoot us down were visible to the support air crews overhead.
I've read the descriptions of the 20 Nov 68 battle in the books written by Linderer, Grant and Meacham. As someone who was actually there, I find no discrepancies in their descriptions.
The anonymous smears lead back to one person who I have talked to but will not name here. That person, who served in Vietnam, was not near Linderer's team on 20 Nov 68, but by his own admission was in a different unit hundreds of miles away. He bases his attacks on Linderer's veracity on a brief log kept by clerks at a base camp miles away from the action. All the participants in the action that day, that I have talked to, agree on the basic facts of the battle. The brief notations of the clerks in the rear are slightly different. Who are you going to believe. The soldiers and air crew who were actually there or some anonymous person who wasn't anywhere near the battle.
This same person calls Linderer a liar because not all his medals are listed on the Form DD214 held at the army records repository in St Louis. By that same logic I'm a liar too because I received an Air Medal years after my discharge and thus it doesn't show up on my DD214. It's not all that unusual.
Gary Linderer is a true hero who has devoted his life since Vietnam to helping other veterans (including the person now slandering him anonymously). These attacks on his character and truthfulness are shameful and undeserved.
Read Linderer's books with the assurance that they reflect the truth as related by the soldiers and air crews who were actually there. John Reid, Portland, OR
Click Here to see more reviews about: Eyes of the Eagle
When Gary Linderer reached Vietnam in 1968, he volunteered for training and duty with the F Company 58th In, the Long Range Patrol Company that was "the Eyes of the Eagle." F Company pulled reconnaisssance missions and ambushes, and Linderer recounts night insertions into enemy territory, patrols against NVA antiaircraft emplacements, and some of the bravest demonstrations of courage under fire that has ever been described....
