19 Minutes to Live - Helicopter Combat in Vietnam: A Memoir by Lew Jennings

All five stars here are without any doubt attached, and though this is shown to be a memoir, it is far more. I cannot add to the praise it's already received for quality of presentation and clarity of purpose. It is a memorial to those who journeyed with the author through best and worst. The true quality value is to read, realize and remember how amazingly this story is told to keep their names and dedicated service known. Many Thanks that Lew Jennings gave us all such a gift (with all due respect, seriousness and sense of humor). A success story from start to finish.

19 Minutes to Live : Helicopter Combat in Vietnam by Lew Jennings falls under the category of books I really wanted to like, but upon completion, I was disappointed.As one who was cannon fodder age during the Vietnam conflict, the books I have read in the past about combat in Vietnam, were a combination of the hair standing on up on the back of my neck, and not being able to put the book down. Not so with Jennings’s memoir. Prior to my critique, I want to thank Mr. Jennings for his service. Ironically, prior to entering the Army, he had a pilot’s license in fixed wing aircraft, but no College degree, so neither the Navy or Air Force would accept him as a pilot candidate, and by default, he enlisted in the Army to fly helicopters.A nice touch by Jennings was to describe the army ranking system/pay grades, privates through five star generals, as well as describing the complement of soldiers organized from smallest to largest groupings beginning with a team (4-6 soldiers) through a theater comprised of multiple Armies, and everything in between. He also described how the pilot controls the helicopter, so the reader gets a rudimentary understanding of how a pilot maneuvered his helicopter as he describes combat situations.Jumping to our involvement in the Vietnam war, the author provides general background about the French defeat, but provides scant information about the Vietnam reunification vote, that most historians conclude would have been rather easily won by Ho Chi Minh. The United States backed Ngo Din Diem in the south, who refused the plebiscite, the country remained divided, and with the scare of spreading communism, the United States ultimately backed the wrong horse.Jennings memoirs of Vietnam are largely a collection of anecdotal stories provided by his fellow pilots. Often times orders of battle are provided. The remembrances are predominately written with lack of passion, and this reader was dumbfounded by the amount of ordinance thrown at individual soldiers of the North Vietnamese armies, or the Viet Cong, both of whom were too often referred to as the “bad guys”. As an objective reader of history, this referral is rather insulting in regard to those, who were indeed our opponents, yet at the same time were patriots fighting to reunite their country, while at the same time ridding their country of the yoke of foreign control.There is one map of Vietnam, and a small photocopied topographical map of Hamburger Hill. Quite a bit of time is used discussing Hamburger Hill, the efforts, the losses, and ultimately the abandonment of the Hill upon which so much was sacrificed. Maps are an Achilles Heel to many books about military campaigns and histories, and 19 Seconds to Live is no exception to this omission.19 Minutes to Live is not about Hueys swooping in under fire and depositing troops, and then picking them up. Nor is it about Hueys evacuating the wounded and the dead. The author flew a Cobra gunship, that was to support ground action and provide cover for the Hueys. Also, the Cobras flew in tandem with a smaller scout helicopter that served as a spotter for enemy forces either by direct observation or by drawing fire. The Cobras would then be directed toward the opposing forces and as aforementioned dispense of an inordinate amount of ordinance. The analogy of David versus Goliath occurred to me more than once. If you chose to read 19 Minutes to Live, you decide who was the David and who was the Goliath.

I loved how in depth Mr. Jennings was with his presentation of his part in the war efforts in Vietnam. Multiple times I felt like I was on board with him. Thank you for your service in our Armed Services. God bless and PLEASE be safe.

Lew Jennings is one of those guys that served his country with valor not looking for the heroism stuff at all but becoming one of those heroes you want your kids to look up to in spite of the circumstances that put him there.I severed two tours in Vietnam during 1965,67 & 68 and I know that every word Lew spoke in this incredible book is absolutely on the mark.The Huey pilots and Cobra pilots were brave beyond belief and would never leave anyone behind no matter what it took to get us out of big trouble.I spent 17 missions with the 5th Marine recon always surrounded by the enemy during our 6 to 8 man teams sneaking and peaking and brining hell down on the bad guys.Many times we were literally shot out of our missions in a running battle trying to get to a spot where the angels from heaven could bring us out.Not one time did these guys hesitate for a minute in coming in under heavy fire and picking us up and getting us and our KIAs and WIAs back to our home base mostly in one piece.There were unfortunately some dust offs that would not come in if we were taking even the slightest amount of fire but that was the exception and not the rule.In most cases these brave men in unarmed Hueys would fly into hell if necessary to get our wounded out. Like their motto “when I have your wounded” says.I tried to go to warrant officer school and become a helicopter pilot as well but my eye site just wasn’t up to par for their requirements.However, after returning to civilian status I finally got my flight school training and license flying these beautiful machines that most the pilots say that the only reason they actually can fly is because they vibrate and shake so badly that the earth rejects them into the air.After flying for fun and some work I got a giant lesson in what these guys in vietnam went through just simply flying for hours on end and just how much punishment their bodies took sitting in that seat for what seemed like forever. And the ones I flew were much more comfortable than theirs.Lew Jennings and his so called Buds really did hang it out there everyday for the guys with packs and rifles as he says.They couldn’t believe what we did and we couldn’t believe what they did over there risking it all to protect the other guy there with us, our fox hole mates as we called them.This book is a fantastic read and a real lesson in what really happened in the battles we went through. It’s so different than the TV versions that were made to try to make war look macho somehow.It wasn’t macho at all it was scary as shit all the time but once you were in the thick of it you were so busy it didn’t, for me, hit me until it was over and then I would start shaking like hell realizing what I just survived and who didn’t.Congratulations to Lew and all the other pilots that hung it out there every day to take the battle to the bad guys and send as many as possible to their maker and make my life so much better every time they showed up.Thank you and G-D bless all of you guys from heaven from us guys from hell.

I have watched helicopters come and go in both gulf wars, ridden medevacs, been scared to death by my pilots, but have always admired their skills and guts in flying this things. Thanks for your service and your book!

He enjoyed the book, a quick read, he'd recommend

Thank you for your service, a story that was hard to put down. Well done and very much appreciated thanks

Thanks for your service. God was watching over you.I've read some good books about flying helicopters in Vietnam and this was one of the better ones.

As one who flew in a Cobra AH-1G gunship with the 1st Air Cav in Vietnam, this book by Lew Jennings, gave me a much more detailed understanding of the tactics involved. An excellent book which describes in stark terms the hazardous role that the Air Recce Squadron Pink Teams performed in support of the infantry on the ground, at the start of Vietnamization and the US withdrawal from the country. A hugely difficult balance between avoiding further casualties on the scale of Hamburger Hill and assisting the ARVN attain a level of competence and professionalism to resist the coming North Vietnamese invasion.

This book might very well suit those with a technical mind and a desire to learn specifics but I’m not one of those people. Chances are, I’ll never see a helicopter much less try to build one so I really do not need to know about design or how it was invented or who invented and resigned it. There are better books on the same subject out there that don’t ramble nearly so much. It his is your interest and you don’t give two pins for helicopter design try something different. On the autobiographical side of the book well, it’s a personal memoir so you can’t argue with what happened and that’s the reason for this rating.

Ended up reading a few books about Vietnam helicopter warfare in recent months. This comes recommended and combines more technical detail, experiences from others with that of the author. Overall a gripping account of a year in Vietnam.

Up until now I thought that "Chicken Hawk" was one of the best Vietnam helicopter stories.I now believe that this one puts that one into second place.I could almost believe I was in the cockpit with the pilot so vivid was the action described."

This is a brilliantly written account of the helicopter war in Vietnam, told with humility. It is vivid in its description and compelling in its storytelling and it draws the reader in with an exceptional telling of the experience of this war. I really cannot recommend this book enough to anyone interested in what it was like to be part of the helicopter crews supporting those with “rifle and rucksack” during a pivotal time in the history or armed conflict. Seldom are first hand accounts written in such a fluid and riveting way.