First, the Backstory
Actually the backstory, which happened almost 50 years ago, continues in this post. I invite you to start the Vietnam blog from the beginning, or you can just pick it up from here. I think the following eight-minute video tells the story pretty well of my year in Vietnam.
Just a Brief Aside
Is dwelling or living in the past a bad thing? Probably, but revisiting the past is not the same thing. Look at all the people doing their genealogies these days, using Ancestry.com and other sites. How about revisiting events like wars? If the act of revisiting connects people and draws them closer together, that’s a good thing, right? I’m pretty outgoing, perhaps because of my Texas upbringing, and I’m able to start a conversation with a total stranger. If that person is wearing a Vietnam Vet cap, it’s a sure thing that we will have a conversation.
Blogger’s Note: I should mention that a friend of mine at the gym, who said he really liked my blog and my writing, encouraged me to continue my Vietnam story.
John Kerry Served Where?
If you read my recent travel blog, you know I was in Texas recently visiting relatives. On our way down to visit some high school friends in a little town in southeast Texas, my younger sister and I were talking about stuff. We got on the subject of the Vietnam war. I always wondered about John Kerry’s military service – was he really a Swift Boat commander in Vietnam? You may remember the brouhaha about that when Kerry was running for president (2004). Anyway, as she drove, I googled him and guess what, he did serve in that capacity. And, amazingly, he and I served about the same time, and I’m pretty sure my ship supported his Swift Boat unit, Coastal Division 11. As I was reading the Wikipedia text, I saw An Thoi mentioned. An Thoi was the village near where my ship was anchored at the beginning of my tour – there are several photos in the video. The Coastal Division 11 crews used the APL-21 as a temporary base to clean up after a two-week patrol. How cool is that, a future famous person may have been on my ship while I was in Vietnam.
See my links about John Kerry at the end of this blog.
A Dark and Stormy Night
It was a dark and stormy night, the rain fell in sheets, making it hard to see even a few feet . . . the opening of a Gothic novel, no just my segue to one very exciting incident that happened over there.
Blogger’s Note: The following text is verbatim from a very old version (1979) of this story, just now seeing the light of day.
“But we were getting underway with our renovated libidos, sated after our long liberty in Cat Lo and Vung Tau, so we were not overly concerned with the war. The APL’s agreement with the tug, understandably for its crew members safety but unfortunately not for ours, was that the tow line would be cut if we got hit going upriver. As a precaution, we would traverse the 20 miles on the Mekong River in relative darkness, late at night. Our destination, Dong Tam, was to be my last duty station in Vietnam – in the jargon, I was “short”, with about two months remaining in-country. Just my luck, things were beginning to heat up near the end of my tour.
I was one of the watch standers on duty that night. We were nearing Dong Tam when four rounds of artillery, B-40’s, B-50’s, or something bigger hit the water near our starboard side.
General quarters, general quarters – this is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill.”
Back to the 21st century, I’ll summarize the rest of what happened.
I slammed a magazine into my M-16 and crouched behind a bulkhead, the adrenaline was flowing now. Some of the officers hit the deck, prompting one of our chief petty officers, who was standing on the forecastle of the ship in full view of anybody watching. He was a noted juicer (pretty juiced in that moment), waving his coffee cup (probably filled with bourbon) and gesturing and cursing loudly at the crew members flat on the deck. Thinking back, it was almost comical.
We stayed at General Quarters about four hours and nothing else happened. There was even some conjecture about the rounds having been fired by “friendlies”, mistaking us for the enemy.
That’s it for now, until someone inspires me again to continue these memories of that very interesting year in my life.
Looking for a Rufous 
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