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by Lewis N. Foster (Author)
Performance of Duty: Flying an Electronic Surveillance Mission from Thailand in 1973
In the summer of 1973, Sergeant Lewis N. Foster sat in the back of an aging EC-47 aircraft, climbing out of Thailand toward Cambodia on a secret electronic surveillance mission. The Vietnam War was supposedly winding down. The bombing of Cambodia had not yet stopped. And a young airman who had joined the Air Force to avoid the draft found himself flying combat missions he never expected to fly.
Performance of Duty follows Foster's path from a teenager handed a silver dollar by his father at a children's home in North Carolina, through basic training, Morse code school, an assignment in Italy, and finally to the 6994th Security Squadron flying ARDF missions over Cambodia and Laos. Along the way are stories of culture shock in Thailand, life on a remote air base, the strange humor that kept young servicemen sane, and the quiet weight of knowing that the intelligence he gathered could mean the difference between a missed transmitter and a bombing run.
Decades later, Foster became a mental health social worker specializing in trauma and addiction, and that perspective runs through the book. He writes openly about daydreaming as both a coping mechanism and a survival skill, about the moral uncertainty many servicemen carried home, and about what it means to do your duty in a war whose purpose was already being questioned by the men sent to fight it.
Part wartime memoir, part reflection on memory and healing, Performance of Duty closes with a set of teaching tales drawn from Foster's later career working with troubled teens and horses, along with photographs, historical notes, and the voices of presidents, journalists, and fellow veterans who shaped the era.
For readers of military memoirs, Vietnam-era history, and stories of long-term recovery from war, this is a personal and unguarded look at one airman's tour and the life he built afterward.
