'Permission to Kill' By Janice Rumple

"Blood, drugs, sex and rock and roll...that's Willie's Nam experience." So says the back of the dust jacket of "Permission to Kill," a new novel based on one man's stint in Vietnam. In the book author, photographer, and publisher Brian Wizard relives his life as an eighteen-year-old soldier in Vietnam war through the eyes of main Character Willie Maykett.

The time: the late 60's. Willie sits in his 1956 Ford Crown Victoria coupe contemplating life, having just quit his job at a local factory because he found it unadventuresome.

So Willie joins the army, choosing to fight in Vietnam. On July 6, 1968, he begins his job and life as a gunner on Blue 10, a helicopter in the 181st Assault Helicopter Company, better known as the Thunderhawks.

In a span of ten months, Willie grows from a naive kid to a mature young man, encountering people and places he never dreamed existed. he makes close friends and loses them. He acquires a mamasan (housekeeper and female companion). Willie flies over the jungle terrain of Vietnam (with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin singing in his headset), shooting and killing any suspicious Vietnamese person.

In time Willie realizes that what he thought of as "piece'sa cake" and fun is not so fun after all. He continues to fight and pretend everything's all right, but his mind is full of doubt about the war and the so-called glory of it.

Wizard does well in relating his past to the reader. Willie is the focus of this story, but the other characters and their thoughts and feelings are not forgotten. There's Osgood, pilot of Blue 10 with less than sixty days left in Nam who is worried because he's heard stories about guys like himself being the first ones killed; and Newton, one of Willie's best friends who is fairly regimental in his attitude towards the war and life.

"Permission to Kill" is easy to read and understand. To better understand the Vietnam war through he eyes of a young American soldier, I would strongly recommend this book. It is also an interesting book to read just for fun.

Wizard now lives in Queensland, Australia, where the book was published, but he used to live in Sebastopol and got his art degree at Sonoma State. He wrote the book here in the States, but no publisher would accept it because it was "too real." This prompted Wizard to create his own company, which now publishes his and other author's work.

He is now in the process of creating a video of the book from footage he shot with a video camera while in Vietnam, and a 45-rpm record is being made of a song Willie wrote about his experiences, which is printed in the book.

To get a copy of "Permission to Kill," send five dollars check or money order plus postage and handling to:

Brian Wizard, Box 66, 1579 Farmers Lane, Santa Rosa, CA 95405