Vicious war revisited

by Gary Schofield

Willie Maykett is a fictional character, but his story could be that of any Australian or American soldier who saw action in Vietnam.

Willie is the product of Port Douglas artist, Brian Wizard's imagination and appears as the central character in his first written work, "Permission to Kill". Based on the author's personal experiences as a helicopter machinegunner with the US airborne assault forces working out from Bien Hoa, this is a book which reveals the real face of war against the Viet Cong with all its brutality and savagery.

Brian Wizard's time spent as a soldier forms a dark contrast to his training as a professional artist who holds a bachelor of arts degree majoring in expensive art, and is better known locally for his sculptures and delicate hand crafted jewelry.

"But since my stint in Nam, I've wanted to communicate to people on what it was really like to be there," he said on the eve of his book's launching.

"Permission to Kill" tells of the year Brian Wizard spent mainly providing front lines ground troops with deadly accurate air cover working his mounted machinegun from the open door of a speeding helicopter.

"I served in Nam from 1968-1969 after enlisting in the US Army. The difference between enlisting and being drafted was I got a choice of how I wished to fight," he said.

His book, with its initial run of 960 copies, was printed in Port Douglas by The Douglas Print.

The author chose to be editor, typesetter, folder, collator, binder, publisher and distributor for his book, following his approach to 26 national publishing houses.

"I describe the story as a warm and open look into a cold and closed situation," he said.

"Any imperfections noticed by the reader should be viewed as battle scars obtained by the author during his latest combat assault upon the publishing industry of the world in the name of the little guy," states the book's flyleaf.

"The book is a fictionalized account of reality," said its author.

Mr. Wizard describes his first work as a work release edition containing a page with his autograph, and its print number.

"I hope to see these early issues become collectors times." he said.

He intends to travel back to the US in the near future to promote the book on a wider scale backed by secretly shot video film footage of how he says the Vietnam war was really fought.

"In Vietnam, the killing was easy. While in action your days were numbered and there was no use crying about it. We just stayed high on the violence, mixed with our own fear, a liberal quantity of alcohol and pot smoking." he said.

"This book took me a year to live the experience and four years to complete it. The Vietnam war is not over in the minds of millions of Americans," said the former gunner who received 27 medals during his tour of duty.

"I started as a crew member with helicopter assault teams. We were always the first into action with the support of heavily armoured gunships.

"Later, I got a transfer into what was known as the 'Suicide Unit' flying pollution patrols deep into enemy territory.

"These large helicopters, illegally equipped with 50 mm machine guns, could sprout a cloud of thick smoke and thus allow our ground troops to land and take up positions undetected.

"The crews on these pollution patrols had to be volunteers, even down to the mongrel dog we always had onboard" he said.

The front cover of the cardback book shows a silhouette of a gunner perched in the doorway of a low flying helicopter, while the back cover is a montage of action shots taken by the author.

"I calculate it has taken me about 80 hours to personally set the test and a further 30 hours to correct it", he said.

His one-man-band literary account of the black humor, mateship and horrors of serving as a teenage soldier in Vietnam will be displayed for sale this morning at the Kuranda Market.