"Magnet Ass And The Stone-Cold Truck Hunters" is a Vietnam War memoir about Captain Alan "Magnet Ass" Milacek, the "man who flew his plane on one wing." It is a war story. But it is also not a war story. It has everything to do with a white-hot mission over the Plain of Jars in 1970, for which ten men earned The Mackay Trophy, one of history's most coveted aviation awards--and at the same time, it has nothing to do with any of that at all. It is gritty, and it is holy, sometimes full of shit and shrapnel--and at other times ...
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"Magnet Ass And The Stone-Cold Truck Hunters" is a Vietnam War memoir about Captain Alan "Magnet Ass" Milacek, the "man who flew his plane on one wing." It is a war story. But it is also not a war story. It has everything to do with a white-hot mission over the Plain of Jars in 1970, for which ten men earned The Mackay Trophy, one of history's most coveted aviation awards--and at the same time, it has nothing to do with any of that at all. It is gritty, and it is holy, sometimes full of shit and shrapnel--and at other times as demure as a duck flying over a pond in the dead of winter. Flashing between 1970 Asia and present day Oklahoma, "Magnet Ass" is poignantly written, meticulously researched, and narratively gripping. This incredible moment in the annals of Air Force history becomes a story about the power of kindness, courage, and tenacity in the face of uncertainty and fear. It becomes the story of two men pondering the past, and finding themselves--not only in remembering, but in relationship. "Magnet Ass" is at once a potent war story, a lushly written memoir, and a tale of the power of the everyday impossible, which any of us can strive to achieve. "Magnet Ass And The Stone-Cold Truck Hunters" is wild and free, as are the characters who wrote the story with their lives back in 1970. When they weren't loading ammo in their captain's cannons, the truck hunters spent most of their time hanging out the cargo door of their AC-119K gunship by an inch-thick tether, watching for incoming artillery fire. Their whole job was shooting trucks while dodging bullets. Let's us complain no more about occupational hazards. Two truths are probed in "Magnet Ass". One: When a man flies a plane on one wing, and gets his name on a trophy that has been awarded by the Air Force annually since 1912 for the most meritorious flight of the year, someone should write a story about it. And Two: When that same man returns to farming and disappears into the heartland of America for five decades, yet every school and business in his hometown closes down in honor of his funeral--the entire definition of the word, "significance", should be questioned. This is "Magnet Ass" in a nutshell. When who we are transcends what we do, we will finally be a better world.
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