No Reason for Dying: A Reluctant Combat Pilot’s Confession of Hypocrisy, Infidelity and War

During the Vietnam War, Brian Howard Settles flew nearly two hundred combat missions in a jet fighter as he struggled with feelings of isolation from his convictions, personal inadequacy, and inner questions of his loyalty to a nation from which he felt alienated. Settles grapples with his hypocrisy in selling out on himself and his marriage in exchange for filling his emotional neediness with the glorified machismo of being a fighter pilot. In his guts and glory story, this retired airline captain discloses the awful truth of his guilt laden mania for booze, broads, and battle, sharing the intense, unshakeable emotional cost that lives in the isolation and deprivation that is war. The raw confession of his inner conflict and self-doubt is stirring, preventing No Reason for Dying from becoming a typical Vietnam War memoir. Rather, it's the surrender of himself; weaving a ruthlessly honest story of one man's private torment to survive incredible odds in search of his honor and dignity.

Brian Howard Settles grew up in Muncie, Indiana. At Ball State University, he was a Distinguished Military Graduate of the Air Force ROTC program. Graduating in 1966 with a Secondary Education degree in Spanish, he accepted his Officer’s commission into U. S. Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training at Laredo Air Force Base, Texas. He flew nearly two hundred combat missions in Vietnam before going on to earn his Master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Southern California. After returning to civilian life, he enjoyed a thirty year career as an airline pilot before retiring as a Boeing 757 Captain. During airline furloughs and bankruptcies, he served as a college counselor, a cab driver, and eventually, after retirement, was selected as Chair and Assistant Professor of Airway Science at Delaware State University. Today he is an adjunct professor at Atlanta’s Mercer University. He lives with his wife Phyllis Ann in south Georgia, where he enjoys reading, fishing, writing, and playing with his grandchildren.