Wild Weasels: Saving lives and cheating death

All of the books I have reviewed lately have been infantry or special operations, so I really didn't think Viper Pilot, an autobiography of a modern-day Air Force fighter pilot would offer much in the way of excitement. I was mistaken. In an age of low-tech, low-intensity conflicts, dogfights have become all but a distant memory. But while threats facing today's aviators have evolved, they most certainly have not disappeared. U.S. fighter pilots, the world's best at air-to-air combat, have shifted their role towards close air support for ground units. And with all those planes in the sky, somebody has to take on the death-defying job of knocking out enemy surface-to-air missile sites. That job goes to the “Wild Weasels.” The basic objective of a wild weasel mission is for a team of F-16 pilots to fly over enemy air defense sites, forcing the enemy to fire deadly missiles at the pilot...