Only The Light Moves

Flying Covert Reconnaissance Missions in the Vietnam War

Francis A Doherty, Francis A. Doherty

• Publisher: Air World
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN:
  9781399057035
• Subtopic: Vietnam War

"Doherty writes from the heart. The descriptions of his missions are nothing less than hair-raising. He describes his struggles with coming to grips with the war and the senseless death of so many young men." — The Journal of the Air Force Historical Foundation Only the Light Moves tells the story of a twenty-four-year-old US Army pilot who volunteered to fly covert S.O.G., or Studies and Observations Group, reconnaissance missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a region that came to represent not only the United States' war with Vietnam, but also the "secret war" with Laos and Cambodia. But this is not simply a war story; it is a love story about flying. Captain Francis A. Doherty spent every day for ten months above the jungle battlefield in a Cessna O-1 Bird Dog. The first all-metal fixed-wing aircraft ordered for and by the United States Army following the Army Air Forces' separation from it in 1947, the single-engine Bird Dog was a liaison and observation aircraft. And for this role, it was completely unarmed. It was from the cockpit of a Bird Dog that Captain Doherty observed this illusive war, perhaps searching out enemy troop movements or calling down waiting F-4 Phantoms to strike a new target. It was a war in which he followed his father's footsteps in his dream to become a pilot, and where he learned a compassion that extended both to his comrades and the civilians caught in the middle of that terrible war. In Only the Light Moves Captain Doherty not only reveals the highs and lows of his year at war in Vietnam but expands beyond his time in the conflict. He explores the emotional struggle he and his comrades faced after they returned home, reconciliations with lost faith, and the incredible impact of war on families. We are also given an insight into Francis' subsequent journey to becoming a commercial airline pilot. His story makes no effort to glorify the violence that took the lives of so many. There are no broad stroke proclamations about the war, only a very personal, sensitive account of a terrible conflict seen through the eyes of a then young pilot in the air, illuminating the reality and the cost of when one's country decides to go to war.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• First Words About Years Ago: Do I Die Today?
• Chapter 1 Dawn
• Chapter 2 Nha Trang’s Mosquitos
• Chapter 3 O-1 Bird Dog
• Chapter 4 Be Like Dad
• Chapter 5 MACVSOG
• Chapter 6 Celestina
• Chapter 7 The Central Highlands
• Chapter 8 Our Bloody Spring
• Chapter 9 Arlie Deaton
• Chapter 10 John Glimis Pappas
• Chapter 11 Lloyd Harbor
• Chapter 12 The Top of Richard Lane
• Chapter 13 Alabama Sweet Tea
• Chapter 14 Just Like Dad
• Chapter 15 Ask Me No Secrets
• Chapter 16 Now Dad Knows
• Chapter 17 Ashes
• Chapter 18 My Old Heart
• Last Words
• Acknowledgements
• References
• Plates Section