They fly at first light, party if they make it back, and count the cost each night.Zigzag Men is a work of historical fiction. Intimate, darkly comic, and unflinchingly human, it captures the distortions of military life in a jungle helicopter war, where reluctant draftees and lifers collide, fragile rotors spin relentlessly, and every celebration is shadowed by those who are gone.The place and time are accurate in every respect: a remote airstrip surrounded by ancient, unbroken jungle at Quan Loi, Vietnam, in the last two months of 1970. But the events and archetypal characters of that place and time are genuine and indelible. Military swagger battles the black humor of a loosely led cadre of overworked helicopter pilots and maintenance crews who support Hunter/Killer missions in an Air Cavalry Troop. From dawn to dark, every day, multiple simultaneous missions zigzag over the pristine jungle surrounding them or the devastation of bomb craters, seeking combat to gather intelligence on the enemy. They depart from a crude airstrip and the cluster of sandbagged hooches and underground bunkers that offer token shelter. It serves as their staging point for flight operations during the day and, at night, becomes a notorious haven for carousing among every kind of hardcore malcontent, often altered by drugs and/or alcohol. The celebrations last well into the night, either rejoicing at having survived the day or honoring those who didn't. When "Newbie" replacements occasionally arrive from the "real world" to join this stressful churn of enmities and fidelities, where friendships and animosities are inevitably intensified by the mission's endless demands or by nights of immoderate revelry, exhaustion brings gallows humor; chaos yields the odd geometry of friendship; and fear sparks the flash of surprising heroism.Read Zigzag Men to ride with them and to understand how unlikely friendships, brave defiance, and the magnitude of inconsolable grief can be stirred together into a unique and unexpected brew. For readers of Tim O'Brien, Joseph Heller, Karl Marlantes, and Michael Herr.