To all my fellow Black Ponies,
I was surprised to see that amazon.com had the book advertised so quickly.
Naval Institute Press has yet to update their own web site for their
Fall 2000 book releases, in which this book is featured. I had planned
to give everyone advance notice but they beat me to it. Some time next
week, check back at the amazon.com web site and it will also have a
statement from me about a few of the reasons why I wrote the book
(excerpted from the preface, which explains why in more detail).
Here is what it will say:

When I was a newly winged Naval Aviator, the man in charge of giving me my
next set of orders -- a detailer in the Bureau of Personnel -- described the
Black Pony squadron to me. I was not sure if he was trying to dissuade me
from asking to be sent there, or encouraging me. He described Light Attack
Squadron Four (VAL-4) as a combination of "McHale's Navy" -- after the
popular television program of the 1960s about an unorthodox but effective
PT boat crew -- and the "Black Sheep Squadron" of World War II fame. And
as I found out, the Black Ponies certainly were an unorthodox, one-of-a-kind
outfit.

They did make up their own rules as they went along in that most
unconventional of wars in Vietnam. They had to. There was no textbook for
this kind of mission. The navy plunked a fixed-wing squadron in the middle
of the Mekong Delta and gave it a mission to support the riverine patrol
forces, SEALs, and allied units. As for being "black sheep," yes, many
Black Pony officers either had been passed over for promotion and sent
there to redeem themselves or had been sidetracked by the regular navy
as falling outside a normal career pattern. For many, this posting was
their last or only chance to make something of themselves. It held the
promise of being a place to start over. It would attract some colorful
characters.

Black Ponies fought with borrowed, propeller driven aircraft, in an
era before smart weapons or computer gadgets, in an age before zero defects
and political correctness; when warriors led and did not manage; and
studied tactics, not strategic planning. Black Ponies flew a one-of-a-kind
mission in the middle of the jungle, far from the traditional navy, a
mission that placed a fixed-wing pilot in harm's way - down and dirty,
low and slow.

In writing this book, my aim is to put the reader into the cockpit,
and occasionally on the ground, to give him or her a feel for what it
was like to fly close air support for men whose lives depended on your
skills and daring as a pilot. I strive to have the reader experience and
understand what the pilot is doing as he flies "by the seat of the pants,"
when whatever smarts in the aircraft were between the pilot's ears, not in
the electronics. And while Flying Black Ponies is a military history, it
is also an action adventure about some very vivid characters, whose stories
are told from various points of view. But the Black Pony story could not be
told without also telling the stories of others who served: the "brown water"
sailors, the SEALs, the soldiers, advisors, and airmen the Black Ponies worked
for. But the stories in this narrative are not just about the flying and combat.
They are also about the lives of Black Ponies on the ground, at work and at play,
the enlisted as well as the officers. Over a span of three years about 650 men
served with VAL-4, only 20 percent of them officers. One secret behind the
success of the Black Ponies was the incredible effort of the enlisted men
who maintained the aircraft and ran the squadron. Most were young, some barely
nineteen and away from home for the first time. They came from all parts of the
country, looking for adventure or a challenge, and wound up working harder than
they ever had before or ever would in the future, as did all the Black Ponies,
who lived and worked in conditions that would seem primitive and dangerous to
most people.

While life in the Mekong Delta was difficult, it could also be rewarding,
and at times, funny - infused with the kind of black humor that arises when
human beings face the trials of war. There is even a love story, poignant and
tragic, as such wartime stories often are. Occasionally these stories may be
controversial, the language coarse at times and the characters irreverent, but
the image the Black Ponies project is positive, and I hope inspiring.

My feelings toward this group of men could only be described by writing this
book. It was truly a labor of love. I am proud to have been a Black Pony. And
while I participated in the Black Pony story, it is not my story. It is the
story of a collection of colorful individuals who in the summer of their youth
were called to an adventure that would test their skills, their character and
their courage - an adventure that would test whether some men lived or some
men died. Few people ever get tested in this manner.

Fair winds and following seas,
Kit