A Cobra Pilot in Vietnam: True Tales and Otherwise is a collection of narrative episodes from Ira McComic, an Army AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunship pilot and fire team leader who served with the 235th Aerial Weapons Company (the Delta Devils) in Vietnam.

These firsthand accounts range from the tragically true to ones that reflect a tradition among those aviators whose philosophy is expressed as “Why bother to tell a story unless you can improve it?”

A person who was curious once asked a Cobra pilot what it was like to fly these gunships in Vietnam, and he replied, “I got to fly around, shoot up things, and camp out a lot. What was there not to like?” It was another Cobra pilot who supplied the answer to that question: “All the other stuff.”

The reality of being a gunship pilot in Vietnam was contrary to a dime-novel notion of a shoot-em-up aerial gunslinger, and if you're curious about what it was like to fly Cobra helicopter gunships in Vietnam, ride along with A Cobra Pilot in Vietnam: True Tales and Otherwise.