This book is one I've been waiting for. Having grown up near Selfridge AFB which hosted ADC units in my youth, the USAF interceptors always had a special fascination to me. If I was lucky I got to the base once a year (Armed Forces Day open house) to see the hardware for myself. That wasn't nearly enough exposure. Then as the Vietnam war dragged on and things military got unpopular, Selfridge stopped opening their doors. (The extreme and heartbreaking result for me was a Blue Angels F-4 visit that was flown for the base only. I believe some group threatened to protest this "glorification of war" and the base boss pulled the rug out by declaring no public allowed on base. I didn't understand how the Blue Angels glorified war. All I knew is they were right in my neighborhood and they were off-limits to me. This was one very early and unmistakable lesson that life was not fair. But I digress.)
It seemed TAC fighters got all the exposure and perhaps rightly so, as they were fighting a war. The ADC guys "only" shot down drones and kept us safe at night. I so badly wanted to see pictures of Darts and Voodoos and Daggers. They seemed few and far between. I knew these cool, shiny jets were there, somewhere. What did they look like? What were they doing? Where besides Selfridge did they live? I still can't get enough of that stuff and now my friend Marty Isham has gotten this marvelous picture book published. Not simply a picture book but much informed and interesting reading as well. Especially interesting to me is the coverage of the early days (before the jets sported ADC badges on their tails -- heck, before the jets even!) when the perceived threat became something very serious and what was done to counter it.
The tale of the interceptor is a great story, and a great piece of American Cold-War history. It's almost incredible (maybe it is incredible) how many squadrons of fighters across the country at one time stood ready to defend our shores. Marty's book is a fine tribute to machines and an era gone forever. If I've got a complaint, it that it's not all in color. Full-color picture books have gotten us a little spoiled, I think. But the trade-off here is that the pictures, black and white and color (168 in color by my count), are high-quality and quite a few have not been seen before.
Big thumbs-up on this one.
