When the Lights Go Out : A Vietnam US Army Pilot Reflects on his Service and Beyond

In this heartfelt essay collection, Vietnam War veteran Francis Doherty reflects on life in the face of mortality. It was at the age of twenty-four-year-old that as a US Army pilot Francis volunteered to fly covert S.O.G., or Studies and Observations Group, reconnaissance missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail.It was from the cockpit of a Cessna O-1 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. As this compilation of snapshots covering his time in Vietnam, his piloting career in the years which followed, and the impact of PTSD on his relationships following his service in the US military, it was a conflict that shaped and defined the rest of Francis’ life.Frank writes with incredible vulnerability about the fellow soldiers he witnessed take their final breaths – on the battlefield or decades later, on a hospital bed – the terror of war, and his lifelong mission to connect and cry with the men he fought alongside. Frank is the traditionally masculine army vet, but does not suggest for a moment that he is a war hero. He writes at length about the people whose deaths he feels responsible for, whose faces have haunted him in the years following the war, and increasingly now, as he faces his own final years.Frank’s openness about the deep love within his male friendships and the painful discussions on grief and PTSD he shared with these former comrades offer a point of connection for other men who perhaps feel their machismo limits their ability to express emotion or vulnerability. Frank addresses his reader with direct, staccato prose; he is speaking as an officer, not a poet. Yet When the Lights Go Out is as poetic, poignant, and compelling as it is funny and familiar.