A Backseat View from the Phantom: A Memoir of a Marine Radar Intercept Officer in Vietnam

As a 26-year old Marine radar intercept officer (RIO), Fleet Lentz flew 131 combat missions in the back seat of the supersonic F-4 B Phantom II during the wind-down of the Vietnam War. Overcoming military regulations, he and his fellow Marines at The Rose Garden (Royal Thai Air Base Nam Phong) kept sorely needed supplies moving in while moving combat troops out of Southeast Asia. His personal and accessible memoir describes how pilots and RIOs executed dangerous air-to-ground bombing missions in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos—quite different from the air-to-air warfare for which they had trained—and kept themselves mission-capable (and human) while surviving harsh circumstances.