Serving on Swift Boats was at times a treacherous duty. The crew was made up of six men, an officer and five enlisted. For Coastal Division 13 in 1967 and '68, our patrol area was the coastline, canals, and riverways just a little north of the Mekong Delta all the way to the tip of South Vietnam. We patrolled areas where there were no friendlies, and if we ran into trouble, we were basically on our own for quite some period of time.
This book is about my year in Vietnam on one of these Swift Boats. It includes pictures of boats on duty, some of the scenes of South Vietnam, and excerpts from the Cat Lo base log. I have been in contact with my skipper and shared with him what I have written. He has inserted some things I had missed.
This story is real and is shared to show you some of my experiences during this time. This was part of the ten and a half months before the Tet offensive occurred and my last month and a half after the Tet offensive. My experiences and time were a cakewalk compared to what others experienced during this time and the years that followed.