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MILITARY BOOKS

Robert E. Stoffey

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Colonel Robert E. Stoffey, USMC (ret.) is the author of Cleared Hot! A Marine Combat Pilot's Vietnam Diary and Fighting To Leave: The Final Years of America’s War in Vietnam, 1972-1973.

One reader of Cleared Hot!: A Marine Combat Pilot's Vietnam Diary said, “I was a Marine "guy in the Back" of RF4 aircraft for 13 years. One of the most important jobs of a Gib is to be the communicator. We learned that phraseology used over the radio had to be precise and very clear. Make no mistake radio procedures are written in blood, widows and smoking holes. There is absolutely no room for BS and colorful language. Col. Stoffe got it exactly right. He mentions one instance where a couple of Air Force F4s got [messed] up and nearly killed themselves because their radio procedure was slack. Col. Stoffe does a great job of telling his story. He was a warrior. He faced down the enemy time after time and survived. His book makes fascinating reading for those like to read about men who could have a gunfight every day.

 

One reader of Cleared Hot!: A Marine Combat Pilot's Vietnam Diary said is “an accurate account of a Vietnam pilot during his terms of service in the Vietnam Conflict. Stoffey writes an account of his ordinary missions and his not so ordinary experiences. The book is laced with heroic stories of Stoffey flying his OV-10 forward air support plane and "Dog" helicopter against the "Gooners." In the OH-10 he organizes strikes and marks targets as well as gets in the action with his centerline Gatling gun and rockets, which he's deadly accurate with. In the "Dog" Stoffey delivers much needed supplies to Marine "Grunts" under heavy fire. He gets in fast while his .50 cal. gunners clear the way, drop their cargo, and get out. The action just isn't in the air. There are accounts of rocket attacks and gunfire on the base, (near every night) as well as raids by Gooners with satchel bombs.

 

If you're interested in war books, this is one for you. Stoffey's style is technical and precise, using a lot of military abbreviations and terms, which adds to its authenticity. Cleared Hot!: A Marine Combat Pilot's Vietnam Diary is written as you would expect a pilot of the time to speak. He has that edge about him that defines a great pilot and a hero. This book is worth buying. As well as a good read, it gives you a history lesson with a real sense of the danger involved.”

 

One reader of Cleared Hot!: A Marine Combat Pilot's Vietnam Diary said, “Seeing "We Were Soldiers" with Mel Gibson immediately reminded me of another powerful and true story during the Vietnam conflict - "Cleared Hot". I enjoyed Col. Stoffey's account of his 440 combat missions in its original hardbound edition, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know what it feels like to be in the cockpit and taking hostile fire when there's no turning back. I found the book both educational and a delight to read. I've read it twice.”

 

One reader of Fighting To Leave: The Final Years of America’s War in Vietnam, 1972-1973 said, “"Fighting to Leave" is the ONLY military book, that is "Two-Dimensional"... in that, this military combat book covers the numerous political errors and blunders by our government, while the military fought their way out of a war the politicians didn't want to win. This book, written by one of the U.S. Marine Corps' highest decorated combat pilots, is a MUST READ for its extensive unraveling of historical events chronologically describing the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, that is now currently repeating itself in Iraq.”

 

One reader of Fighting To Leave: The Final Years of America’s War in Vietnam, 1972-1973 said, “Fighting to Leave" is a superb military book that truly reflects the U.S. government's lack of will to win the war in Vietnam by establishing unacceptable "Rules of Engagement" that continuously and dangerously hampered our military in executing its missions and without giving the "green light" for us to accomplish a swift and decisive military defeat of the North Vietnamese government and the Viet-Cong. Fighting to Leave is an extremely detailed, yet easy to understand military book that tells it how it really was... and we MUST LEARN these past lessons from it now in Iraq and in the future.”


Fighting to Leave: The Final Years of America's War in Vietnam, 1972-1973
Robert E. Stoffey  More Info

Cleared Hot!: A Marine Combat Pilot's Vietnam Diary (Special warfare series)
Col. Bob Stoffey  More Info

One reader of Fighting To Leave: The Final Years of America’s War in Vietnam, 1972-1973 said, “Perhaps more vexing than any part of the Vietnam War--Americas longest--was getting out. This book offers a chronicle of those last difficult years, 1972 and 1973, that is at once a detailed and thorough overview and at the same time a vividly personal account. The year 1972 found Marine Corps pilot Robert E. Stoffey beginning his third combat tour in Vietnam.

 

After flying 440 combat missions out of Da Nang and Marble Mountain Airfields in South Vietnam (and being shot down twice) between 1965 and 1970, Stoffey was in a unique position to judge the United States changed strategy. From the vantage point of the USS Oklahoma City, he fought--and observed--the critical and complex last two years of the war as Marine Air Officer and Assistant Amphibious Warfare Officer on the staff of the Commander, Seventh Fleet. As the South Vietnamese battled for survival against the onslaught from the Communist North Vietnamese Army, the U.S. Seventh Fleet, afloat in the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea, was a significant supporting force.

 

With the U.S. Navy’s mining of North Vietnams waterways, concentrated shore bombardments, and air attacks, this sea power was instrumental in leading to the negotiated end of the war and return of our POWs. This is the story that Robert Stoffey tells in his firsthand account of how the Vietnam War finally ended and what it took to get our POWs home.”

 

One reader of Fighting To Leave: The Final Years of America’s War in Vietnam, 1972-1973 said, “"Fighting to Leave" by Colonel Robert E. Stoffey is a MUST READ for all Military History and Political Science Aficionados. There is no such thing as an easy exit from a difficult war. "Fighting to Leave" details the complex, final two years of America's withdrawal from Vietnam integrated with the safe return of America's POWs. If you think that it's complex for the U.S. to exit modern day Iraq, you'll be intrigued with the detailed complexities that the U.S. faced leaving South Vietnam in the early 1970's. "Fighting to Leave is an Absolute MUST READ."

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