Staff Sergeant Keith, wasn’t part of C Troop, 2/17th Cavalry, but he flew reconnaissance aboard the troop’s command and intelligence-gathering helicopters because he thought he could help the men in their most dangerous missions—and the unit’s unconventional leader said he could.
My introduction to him came while I was writing a book about the air cavalry unit and only mentioned Keith because he happened to be wounded aboard a helicopter that was part a larger story of the most intensive helicopter combat ever and what it did to those who flew through it. I didn’t even know his first name. After The Price They Paid was published, one of Keith’s wartime comrades told me he was still alive and arranged for me to get a copy of the book to him.
I gingerly sent Keith the book, hoping the graphic account of his wounding would not be too painful to handle. It was the beginning of a long, coast-to-coast telephone relationship and countless contacts with others who knew him for what he was: a signals intelligence specialist who never should have been on that helicopter. How he got aboard, what he did for the troop, and what became of him afterward is told in this novella-length true story of a soldier who went rogue to fight the war his own way. If he’d been caught, his real commander said years later, he would have been punished for insubordination, dereliction of duty, and going absent without leave. The pilot who was flying him that day and his immediate superior tried for years to get him the Silver Star, his country’s third highest award for combat valor.
Rogue Soldier: One Man’s War is available as a 56-page paperback or a Kindle eBook at Amazon.com and will soon be available as a one-hour-long audiobook from Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes.com.
