Flying Through Midnight
Link to this week’s column at USAToday.com/travel:
Column USA Today
Thanks to those of you who responded to the call
last week to test out a new flight tracking system
for my friend, Karen Wira. Apparently she got
just the right number of volunteers. I’ve never
yet made a request of my readers which hasn’t
yielded a great response, so thanks again really
to all of you who read my Update week in and week
out.
I expect many of you will remember when I first
introduced you to my good friend John Halliday.
When I first met John he had just finished writing
his book “Flying Through Midnight” and was about
to retire as a B-767 captain for American
Airlines.
Since then, he has indeed retired and his book is
out to a veritable chorus of spectacular reviews.
Although the formal release date for John’s book
isn’t until Veteran’s Day (November 11th), his
book is available now in bookstores and online at
sites like Amazon.com. When I read his book I was
stunned. It’s probably the most exciting flying
sequence ever published. John’s literary agent is
also my own, and she sent me this review from
“Publisher’s Weekly.”
"When now-retired Lieutenant Colonel Halliday
reported for duty as a 24-year-old Air Force
officer with the 606th Special Operations Squadron
at a USAF base in Thailand in 1970, he thought
he'd be hauling cargo to Thai air bases. But as
the first-time author recounts in this gripping
memoir, he was ordered to fly a C-123 on
top-secret nighttime combat missions instead.
Assigned to an operation nicknamed "Candlesticks"
for the flares the pilots dropped to illuminate
enemy targets, Halliday played his role in this
hush-hush part of the Vietnam war by bombing the
Laotian part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
"With snappy prose, machine-gun-fast dialogue and
techno-pilot speak, he recreates his forays with
immediacy. The heart of the book is Halliday's
blow-by-blow chronicle of the amazing midnight
crash landing he made on an unlit airstrip in
treacherous mountainous terrain in Long Tien --
no-man's land in northern Laos. There, he and his
crew were greeted by initially suspicious US
forces and commanding general "Bang Pow" of the
Royal Laotian Army. This dramatic, firsthand war
story from a veteran who earned an Air Force
Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions barrels
toward the heroic climax with novelistic
momentum."
You can meet Captain Halliday here at
www.FlyingThroughMidnight.com, a site by none
other than my own Al The Web Guy. My Web Guy is
usually far too busy to build other people’s sites
but made an exception for our fellow airline
captain and veteran (both Al and I are also
veterans).
My entire Viet Nam experience entails flying over
this narrow country to or from Bangkok from
elsewhere in Asia at 35,000 feet or so in a luxury
airliner while eating hot fudge sundaes and
delicious shrimp cocktail. Wait until you read
John’s experience in the same neighborhood,
decades earlier and with far more trauma than
anybody needs in their life. Just trust me on
this: it’s an exciting story, it seems impossible,
it’s true and personally I think this book may
wind up a candidate for and hopefully a winner of
the Pulitzer Prize.
I hope you’ll consider bringing home Halliday for
the holidays. (Did you REALLY think we’d get
through one of these Updates without my usual
awful attempt at literary humor? I didn’t think
so, although this one was particularly bad even
according to my own miserable standards.)
Don’t forget that my new book “Flights of Whimsy –
Quips ‘N’ Quotes” will be out soon. We’re on
schedule and it should be out as expected
mid-November. I expanded this quote book just a
tad from the original planned size and the
eventual retail price will be $11.95 plus
shipping. Until Christmas you can order it for
just $9.95 and I’ll throw in shipping for free.
Click here to order:
http://www.fromthecockpit.com/Gift_Ideas.html
I’ve also put autographed copies of my book “The
World At My Feet” on sale until Christmas in the
form of free shipping. Total price is $17.95.
Click here to order:
http://www.fromthecockpit.com/Gift_Ideas.html
And with that,
Until Next Time,
Maintain Airspeed!
Cap’n Meryl
www.fromthecockpit.com
www.flyingfearless.com
www.fromthecockpit.com/profile.htm
(keynote speaker information)
Column USA Today
Thanks to those of you who responded to the call
last week to test out a new flight tracking system
for my friend, Karen Wira. Apparently she got
just the right number of volunteers. I’ve never
yet made a request of my readers which hasn’t
yielded a great response, so thanks again really
to all of you who read my Update week in and week
out.
I expect many of you will remember when I first
introduced you to my good friend John Halliday.
When I first met John he had just finished writing
his book “Flying Through Midnight” and was about
to retire as a B-767 captain for American
Airlines.
Since then, he has indeed retired and his book is
out to a veritable chorus of spectacular reviews.
Although the formal release date for John’s book
isn’t until Veteran’s Day (November 11th), his
book is available now in bookstores and online at
sites like Amazon.com. When I read his book I was
stunned. It’s probably the most exciting flying
sequence ever published. John’s literary agent is
also my own, and she sent me this review from
“Publisher’s Weekly.”
"When now-retired Lieutenant Colonel Halliday
reported for duty as a 24-year-old Air Force
officer with the 606th Special Operations Squadron
at a USAF base in Thailand in 1970, he thought
he'd be hauling cargo to Thai air bases. But as
the first-time author recounts in this gripping
memoir, he was ordered to fly a C-123 on
top-secret nighttime combat missions instead.
Assigned to an operation nicknamed "Candlesticks"
for the flares the pilots dropped to illuminate
enemy targets, Halliday played his role in this
hush-hush part of the Vietnam war by bombing the
Laotian part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
"With snappy prose, machine-gun-fast dialogue and
techno-pilot speak, he recreates his forays with
immediacy. The heart of the book is Halliday's
blow-by-blow chronicle of the amazing midnight
crash landing he made on an unlit airstrip in
treacherous mountainous terrain in Long Tien --
no-man's land in northern Laos. There, he and his
crew were greeted by initially suspicious US
forces and commanding general "Bang Pow" of the
Royal Laotian Army. This dramatic, firsthand war
story from a veteran who earned an Air Force
Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions barrels
toward the heroic climax with novelistic
momentum."
You can meet Captain Halliday here at
www.FlyingThroughMidnight.com, a site by none
other than my own Al The Web Guy. My Web Guy is
usually far too busy to build other people’s sites
but made an exception for our fellow airline
captain and veteran (both Al and I are also
veterans).
My entire Viet Nam experience entails flying over
this narrow country to or from Bangkok from
elsewhere in Asia at 35,000 feet or so in a luxury
airliner while eating hot fudge sundaes and
delicious shrimp cocktail. Wait until you read
John’s experience in the same neighborhood,
decades earlier and with far more trauma than
anybody needs in their life. Just trust me on
this: it’s an exciting story, it seems impossible,
it’s true and personally I think this book may
wind up a candidate for and hopefully a winner of
the Pulitzer Prize.
I hope you’ll consider bringing home Halliday for
the holidays. (Did you REALLY think we’d get
through one of these Updates without my usual
awful attempt at literary humor? I didn’t think
so, although this one was particularly bad even
according to my own miserable standards.)
Don’t forget that my new book “Flights of Whimsy –
Quips ‘N’ Quotes” will be out soon. We’re on
schedule and it should be out as expected
mid-November. I expanded this quote book just a
tad from the original planned size and the
eventual retail price will be $11.95 plus
shipping. Until Christmas you can order it for
just $9.95 and I’ll throw in shipping for free.
Click here to order:
http://www.fromthecockpit.com/Gift_Ideas.html
I’ve also put autographed copies of my book “The
World At My Feet” on sale until Christmas in the
form of free shipping. Total price is $17.95.
Click here to order:
http://www.fromthecockpit.com/Gift_Ideas.html
And with that,
Until Next Time,
Maintain Airspeed!
Cap’n Meryl
www.fromthecockpit.com
www.flyingfearless.com
www.fromthecockpit.com/profile.htm
(keynote speaker information)
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