Going Deep

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I started writing the Hogs series early in my career, soon after the end of what we now call the First Gulf War. The A-10A was still something of an ugly duckling — or Warthog — at the time, though the men who’d seen her in action were quick with praise. The planes and their crews gave everything they had in that war, and then some; the colonel who “owned” the Hogs after the conflict used rather colorful language when explaining their condition to me following the fight.

Things are different now. It seems as if the whole world knows about the Hogs. They’ve been overhauled and upgraded considerably since the war, so much so that they’ve been rechristened as A-1 °Cs. But they’re still amazing tough… and still darn ugly.

Good ugly.

Another thing that hasn’t changed — Hog drivers are still a rare breed, throwback stick and rudder types whose skills squeeze every ounce of capability from their amazing machines. Man and beast are lean and lethal warriors, perfectly matched.

I was still learning — I still am learning — when I wrote those books. One of my regrets is that, in portraying the squadron, I had to cut down dramatically on the number of people and streamline the various tasks involved to keep the story manageable. There were probably ten or twenty people in the real squadron for every one person depicted in the books. I wish I could have depicted and thereby honored everyone who contributed to their success.

About the pseudonym, James Ferro — it was a marketing device at the time, suggested by the publisher (I believe) so readers wouldn’t be confused by the historical fiction I was also writing. The last name is a tribute to my wife’s family, most especially my late father-in-law, a no-nonsense, meat and potatoes Marine, whom I’m sure wouldn’t have minded a few Hogs flying overhead when he was in Korea.