Three years before they came together, four young American men left their fraternities and college campuses for an adventure exceeding their imaginations. Wanting something more than the draft and unknown to each other they each chose Naval Aviation as the next step in their lives. Generally, they were better than their navy peers, all qualifying for high performance aircraft to be flown from steel decks over foreign seas. They were to become the pointy end of the stick in aerial battles over North Viet Nam, the most heavily defended patch of real estate in the history of aerial warfare. They were to do this in 1967, the year in which Naval Aviation experienced its greatest losses. These four young men, now Lieutenants Junior Grade, United States Navy, were ordered to Attack Squadron 34 to fly A4 Skyhawks into combat. They were assigned Junior Officer"s bunkroom 0111 aboard USS Intrepid, a venerable aircraft carrier with a distinguished history. This "bunkroom" better known to them as "Triple Sticks" was the repository for a log (in Navy terms) or journal written by these four young aviators. Forty years later the Triple Sticks log was the genesis of this memoir. Aboard ship, in the lethal aerial environment over the northern reaches of North Viet Nam or ashore in the Officer"s clubs and bars of Asia, the writing brings to life wonderful humor, bizarre behavior, vivid aerial battles, uncommon loyalty, anger, frustration and respect. You survived or you did not, according to your skills and luck. The memoir reads like fiction. The author assures us it is not.