The Vietnam experience was hellfire, privation, blood, sweat and death to the average ground soldier. Many a "grunt" looked up at the prosecutors of the air war as a privileged group who went to war at a distance, an altitude, from the "real" soldiers.

But was it really so different? Bruce Lake, decorated with 42 Air Medals and the Silver Star for heroic rescue mission, veteran of hundreds of helicopter missions under hostile fire during his "year, month and day" in country, offers us a revealing, day by day look at the reality of flying bravely in the face of obscure or conflicting policy; of watching his friends from the squadron leave on missions without returning; of his increasing realization that the war was being fought with a goal of maintaining a position rather than winning.

From the opening recollection of his painful, but typical adjustment to civilian life, the true-to-life journey through a year filled with " hours of boredom followed by a few moments of sheer terror" and excitement, to an honest reflection on the meaning of his experiences, the reader will truly fly with Lake and other helicopter pilots "1500 feet over Vietnam."