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Vipers in the Storm: Diary of a Gulf War Fighter Pilot

Vipers in the Storm: Diary of a Gulf War Fighter Pilot

List Price: $24.95
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: one of the best book about the war in the gulf
Review: i find this book very interesting and i can hardly put it down, it makes you feel proud that America has defend the world.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very good.....but not great.
Review: I read this book probably faster then I've ever read another book. It was not complicated to read, but that's not the main reason. The main reason is I didn't want to put it down. Capt. Rosenkranz does an amazing job at putting you right there in the hot seat; almost as amazing a job as the actual missions he flew! You can learn a lot about your United States Air Force at it's best (and not-so-best) with this book. I highly recommend it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: true hero
Review: Mr. Rosenkranz is somebody that was in love with his job and not war. this book takes a look at his experiences of the gulf war. one of the things i really liked about his book was his openess about his moral concerns of his job. he was the guy next door who was called upon to defend his country. a true hero. the thing that bumps this up to a five star book is the interactive website. i really suggest looking this site up when you start the book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Vipers in the Storm
Review: My son and I read Vipers in the Storm together. We were soon engrossed in Capt. Rosenkranz's training and preparation for action in Desert Shield & Desert Storm.

Capt. Rosenkranz's book is not the typical "shoot `em up" war story. "Rosey," his Viper call sign, first describes his desert training and then gives the reader some background leading up to the Gulf War. I found this invaluable, as my son was not even born when the Storm ended. It's also a great review for us older folks who may have forgotten a thing or two, or maybe didn't know the rest of the story!

Throughout the book, Rosey describes his personal feelings, his worries, disappointments, love for family, and sadness and horror. Nothing is left out. His attention to detail and accuracy is outstanding. When you finish this great book you, too, will have a new measure of appreciation for America's Viper drivers, which is personified here by Keith Rosenkranz.

Although the book impressed me, it made even a bigger impression on my 10-year-old. With the current situation with Iraq, the book gave him cause to question current events with me and has impressed on him what we are transitioning to in the Gulf today. Rosey's love for his family, and separation from them, as well as the training, downtime, and losses he wrote of, vividly portray the struggles our pilots have faced and are facing today.

When the "action" does start, Rosey pulls no punches and again accurately describes the entire mission from turning on the VTR and titling his tape to munching a granola bar at 36,000 feet on the flight home. In between those times, Rosey recounts some hair-raising incidents, again in great detail. Rosey's account of his 30 combat missions should dispel any doubts that America's fighter pilots "just push buttons." What makes Capt. Rozenkran's missions even more amazing is that most of them were flown at night, using LANTIRN!

Rosey completed his missions in the finest tradition of the U.S. Air Force, and he does recognize the enemy were human beings doing their job for their nation. With a mixture of fear, exhilaration, sadness, relief, and joy when the ordnance was on target, each mission is professionally accomplished. Errors, when they happen, are not glossed over but spoken of honestly and learned from.

For the flight sim pilot, veteran pilot, aviation enthusiast, young person interested in the USAF, or reader wondering what our Air Force did (or may do again) in the Gulf, Capt. Rosenkranz's work will leave you about as breathless as he was when he watched the SAMs launching below him. My thanks to the author, and all Viper drivers, for their dedication, and thanks, Keith, for instilling in my son a desire to fly with the best someday.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Combat details derailed by naive political commentary
Review: Rosenkranz provides plenty of details about exactly what a combat pilot does in a very busy F-16 cockpit, and he also details some of the interesting personal history that led him into this career. Unfortunately, he can't resist frequently venturing off into naive political and historical analyses of the wider questions of the war and the threat Iraq posed to the world, reprinting many speech excerpts from President H.W. Bush as justification for what he and his fellow service men and women were doing, extending them, in the end, to justify the current war in Iraq without ever considering the problems incurred by pursuing policy with force in the Middle East. At times the book reads like an instrument of the Republican National Committee campaign to reelect George W. Bush, or at the very least an apologist for the mistakes of both Bush administrations in the Middle East.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome Tales Of A Real American Hero
Review: The book, "Vipers In the Storm" is a real life tale of a modern war hero, Keith Rosenkranz, Captain USAF. The foreward by Vice President Dick Cheney sums it up by saying how fortunate we are as Americans to have dedicated heroes like Keith Rosenkranz fighting for our freedom. This is a must read book for anyone interested in modern air warfare, the real life accounts of the Gulf War, and for those interested in heroism at its best. I understand that several readers of Vipers In The Storm actually joined the USAF and are now flying fighter jets for our country - all inspired by Captian Rosenkranz (Rosey). The Captain writes vivid accounts of both his personal feelings and the combat he was a part of on a daily basis. With more potential conflict ahead of the United States, this is an important book to read and gain a foundation of the United States previous battles in Iraq.
The author's website ... is also a must see. The author responds to email which makes this book even a better buy.
I enjoyed the book and the accounts of Captain Rosenkranz. This book is worthy of the best seller list!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Combat details derailed by naive political commentary
Review: When I heard about this book, I literally ran out the door and sped to the bookstore to buy it. Me + This Book = Match Made in Heaven. After all, I am a pilot, an aviation enthusiast, and a HUGE history buff! Let's let 'er rip!

Well, maybe the aformentioned personal attributes have actually CONTRIBUTED to my disappointment. This book amounts to a 200+ page detailed information dump about every switch flipped, every button pushed and every word spoken on God-knows-how-many sorties. And beware: each time out it is the same thing.

Want to get some pilot's perspective details about the F-16? Haha...Sucker! Did you think you would get a military man's perspective about the operation in general in anything but the most, let's say, "simplistic" terms? Again, you bought the wrong book. How about an inside look at the real interactions between fellow fighter pilots, perhaps after the mission? Uh-uh. Rosenkranz is a good soldier: a simple box on the chain of command that knows what buttons to push and when to eat and sleep. He gets in the cockpit, reads his mission details for the recorder, and when he nears the target he operates his weapons systems, and then comes home, heads to the beer tent, goes to bed, gets up the next morning, and does it again. And again.

When you read this book you get the impression that Keith Rosenkrantz is under some sort of pressure to keep everything low key and not expose too much, whether personal or professional, because it might affect his career.

The only time when he wrote about his feelings in anything but superficial terms is when he exchanged letters with someone who was against the action in Iraq. "I wish I could have seen his face when he read my letter", Rosenkranz muses, I guess imagining the devastating effect that the tired old "price of freedom" missive he fired back must have had on its recipient.

I would give anything to be able to fly the F-16 and do what Keith did, but only because I don't believe his bland account is all there is to flying such a ship in wartime or any other time, for that matter.

Is the author brave and competent and am I proud that he is a fellow American? Sure! But we can separate what we think about the man from his book and its contents.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must read military aviation enthusiasts.
Review: Written from a first person point of view, Keith "Rosey" Rosenkranz takes the reader along with him in his F-16C through the exciting and, at times, terrifying combat sequences in the Gulf War. From the air to air combat during a bombing mission in the first chapter through the end of the war over Basra, his descriptions are vivid without becoming mired down in military jargon and acronyms. He presents the F-16C, its maintainers and the men flying the airplane as an entire weapons system, offering many details only available from a first hand account. He shares the commraderie and trials of squadron life and offers a hearty glimpse into the world of a USAF fighter pilot.

As if the book weren't enough, the author has an accompanying website ... . This innovative site is a perfect companion to the book and includes a wealth of technical details, lots of photos and an interactive "Viper" cockpit. He even includes actual HUD display tapes from his missions (listed by chapter) in a real player format along with other video sequences. The only thing missing are the G forces!


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must read military aviation enthusiasts.
Review: Written from a first person point of view, Keith "Rosey" Rosenkranz takes the reader along with him in his F-16C through the exciting and, at times, terrifying combat sequences in the Gulf War. From the air to air combat during a bombing mission in the first chapter through the end of the war over Basra, his descriptions are vivid without becoming mired down in military jargon and acronyms. He presents the F-16C, its maintainers and the men flying the airplane as an entire weapons system, offering many details only available from a first hand account. He shares the commraderie and trials of squadron life and offers a hearty glimpse into the world of a USAF fighter pilot.

As if the book weren't enough, the author has an accompanying website ... . This innovative site is a perfect companion to the book and includes a wealth of technical details, lots of photos and an interactive "Viper" cockpit. He even includes actual HUD display tapes from his missions (listed by chapter) in a real player format along with other video sequences. The only thing missing are the G forces!



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