MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

This book is a memoir based on letters I wrote and the diary I kept in Vietnam.

I started writing in 1979 to counter the despicable depiction of the actions of sailors on Swift Boats and River Patrol Boats in the movie, Apocalypse Now. It was my attempt to tell about the Vietnam War that I knew while serving in DaNang in 1969-1970.

This book is a coming-of-age story of a callow college graduate whose service, first as an officer on the USS Savage (DER-386) and then as skipper of a Swift Boat turned a boy into a man.

Coastal Division 12 Swift Boats patrolled mostly along the coast, but one of our key missions in 1969 was the perilous patrols in the Cua Dai River Basin. Many men were wounded there in the firefights; one of our officers died.

The book recounts the great professionalism and courage of Swift Boat sailors but also the gradual disillusionment that many of us felt, as the Vietnamization of the War supplanted our original mission of winning the war.

Format(s) for review: Paper Only

Review Genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography

Number of Pages: 338

Word Count: 162,000