Bernard Lenrow

World class narration.

Revisado: 11-19-23

Sean Pratt's performance of this book is stellar. His affect and inflection brings life to Kugler's sardonic and detached manner. He has just the right voice for the part. I feel like I know Ed Kugler.

This is my favorite Vietnam memoir because Ed Kugler does so much more than simply describe the events of his service. I was quickly invested as he and his team built rapport. He portrayed their eagerness to contribute, and their frustration when they could not. As his attachment to his teammates grows, and he becomes dependent on that brotherhood, there is an undertone of detachment from his emotions and disappointment with his family. It becomes easy to understand how difficult it is for returning combat veterans of sny war to adjust to the mundane life back home. I have heard (read) it over and over.

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The best overall fighter pilot memoir I have read.

Revisado: 04-17-22

Steve Ladd didn't make this book about his daring exploits. in fact, he didn't describe any of his sorties in Vietnam despite flying over 150 missions there. he chose instead to make this book about his 28 year journey as a fighter pilot. he had the good fortune to attain the rank of Colonel with few staff assignments, and rose to run the largest air combat unit in Europe while still flying missions.

The narration was first rate despite occasional audio quality problems.

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Incoherent

Revisado: 06-05-21

This book was not described as 22 hours of stream-of-consciousness prose. It is the literary equivalent of that guy who decorates his entire lawn with brightly colored junk, and believes that keen passersby will understand and appreciate its artistic merits.

Before I returned it, I sampled chapters throughout the book in case it eventually developed a coherent narrative form, but it never did.

If there is artistic merit in this form of literature, 22 hours of it would still be unlistenable.

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Classic Junger.

Revisado: 05-18-21

I enjoyed this book. I always enjoy Sebastian Junger's books. I recommend it as a short introspective work about a mode of travel unheard of these days. In some regards it is a Huckleberry Finn adventure by and for grown-ups. I am 53, and now I feel like making a similar journey. That is one of the main points of the book; there is something inherently appealing to the itinerant tribal type life depicted in this book. In that regard, this book ties in nicely with Junger's last book, Tribe. I totally get how this lifestyle can feel so rewarding.

One thing I love about Junger's work is that he frequently digresses from his narrative to interject a brief, well researched treatise that supports the current topic. He offers some intriguing examples of history, physics, biology, religion, etc. to deepen your understanding of the people or situation he describes in his story. It makes his books that much more involving. He does this better than any other author I have read, and this book is no exception.

This book pulled me in and maintained my interest. However, it left me with the feeling that it was only the middle of a more interesting, longer book. Junger is deliberately vague about the purpose and origin of his adventure, and uncommonly never even mentions the name of any of his companions. The book starts with the journey well underway, and ends abruptly. As a literary style, it is intriguing, but leaves me preoccupied with what was not told. I am intensely curious about it.

Junger's narration can be jarring at first. He is not a slick sounding actor. He is better. I have come to appreciate him as I do with most nonfiction authors who read their own books. nobody else knows exactly what to emphasize, or can relate another person's speech and mannerisms as well as the author. In his book, War, he relates the soldiers' dialog as if they were speaking. I have never felt closer to the subjects of a book. War is one of my all time favorite audiobooks, and Freedom earns my continued loyalty.
Junger has in me, a lifelong fan.

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Obnoxious narrator harms a great story

Revisado: 12-02-19

This book should be read by anyone who apreciates the achievements and sacrifices of our individual soldiers and small units in the Global War on Terror. This is one of the greatest success stories of the war in any theater, but at a great cost!

Notwithstanding the great content, I found this book painful to listen to because of the narrator's over the top playhouse-dramatic performance. In the intense moments, he makes each line sound sooo dramatic, like cheesy dialog in a grade B war movie - excess urgency bordering on whininess. Even the most mundane dialog is over acted. The narrator sounds like a rookie actor straining to win an Academy Award. Buy it because the story is very much worth hearing, and endure the narrator.

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This pushed all my buttons!

Revisado: 06-04-18

I was moved to write this review after only listening to the first four chapters. The rest didn't disappoint.

ONE: This is one of the first books I searched for when I subscribed to Audible nine years ago. I was so excited to see it in my recommendations; I had frankly given up looking for it. This first rate production was well, well, worth the wait. Thank you for finally releasing this production.

TWO: Tom Wolfe's literary style is so extraordinarily well suited to this subject, this setting, this period, and these larger-than-life characters that it seems implausible that it could be written by anyone outside the exclusive and private inner circle of these legendary pilots. My conclusion is that if Tom Wolfe had not the "Right Stuff" himself, he could not write this stuff! So remarkable is it, that I suspect that prior to this recording, no narrator was up to the task of bringing this book to life.
Enter Dennis Quaid.

THREE: Dennis Quaid...Nailed it! This appears to be the first significant audiobook Mr. Quaid has narrated. What was he waiting for? He is as deserving of an award for his performance on this audiobook, as he is of his many screen acting awards and nominations. It is simply some of his best work! He is the perfect partner to Tom Wolfe in the extraordinary act of exceeding the written page, and giving the story a performance. Quaid channels the irreverent third person narrative of Tom Wolfe with a dramatic style that risks being over the top...except you can't out-over-the-top these cocky fighter pilots and the innumerable gut-wrenching accidents and close calls that saturated the lives of these men. The story demands it, and Quaid delivers as if if this was always his favorite book, Wolfe his favorite author, and he was at all the interviews in person. He sounds like this story, and speaks for these characters.

This story, this author, and this narrator pushed all my buttons. What a great read!

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