Southeast Asia, and other trivial matters.

Viet Nam February 1963 - July 1966

After completing Basic Training more or less successfully, I attended and graduated 3rd in my class at the Navy’s Radio "A" school in San Diego. This minor feat entitled me to some choices of duty after graduation. I chose to be in the Pacific Fleet, preferably in SE Asia.  I would subsequently volunteer for Swift Boat duty, Nuclear Sub Duty, and an Antarctic Expedition, and would be turned down on all attempts because of particular personality traits, including oppositional habits, risk taking, and a lack of impulse control.  I disagreed that those traits were a liability, particularly on the Swift Boats, but wiser minds would prevail.  I should point out that my sole reason for wanting submarine duty was the extra pay, which I ended up getting anyway when in Vietnam's coastal waterways. My reason for wanting SWIFT Boat duty was the pay, the speed, and the informality of the organization and its leadership. The units were disciplined, but discipline wasn’t wasted on matters which in fact didn’t matter. I can’t remember why I volunteered for Antarctica. Possibly a long punitive year in and around Pearl Harbor was the motive for volunteering for even worse duty.

I boarded the USS Ashtabula (AO51) in Yokosuka Japan U.S. Naval Shipyard in June 1963, after spending more than a month enroute from California, waiting  in transient housing in Subic Bay, Philippines where the ship was scheduled to port at “any time.”  She never appeared, so eventually I was flown to meet her.  The Ashtabula was an oiler, whose sole purpose was to refuel other vessels at sea, during an underway replenishment (UnRep).  After expending our supply of JP5 and Avgas, we would run for the nearest fuel depot, top off, and run back to refuel more ships.  During my time on the "Nasty Ashty" as she was affectionately known, we operated almost entirely off the coast of Viet Nam, within the imaginary combat lines, and so we earned combat pay ($65/month) and were awarded an Expeditionary Medal for our service, because the Viet Nam Service Medal was not yet conceived...no one figured we'd be "there" that long, so an expeditionary medal probably seemed most appropriate.  I remained aboard until being transferred in November 1963, a week before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

I don't remember much about the day I boarded except that I was 19-years old and scared. My lack of knowledge about shipboard life, or about much of anything useful for that matter, was glaringly apparent; the ship was big and strange; the people trying to help me spoke an unfamiliar sea-speak, which wasn’t taught in basic training or A-school. Also, I was concerned that I might have forgotten how to do "code" (International Morse Code), because more than two months had passed since I had my hand on a key or heard code through ear-phones, and transcribed that code to English typewritten words for others to rely on.  

As it turned out, almost all of my entire duty hours on my new ship were spent with key in hand, wearing headphones, trying to pick the sounds out of the solid wall of static and phantom signals, and put the results in 5-character, typed clusters so that someone else with a higher pay-grade could run the code through a decryption device and produce intelligible information.  That information might tell us where to go, and what to do when we got there.  If reception of the thread of 5-letter segments had been broken by static, a typing error, or loss of the radio-synch, then that part of the encrypted message had to be requested for a repeat, finally resulting in a message which was seamless, otherwise, when decrypted every sequence following the error would just be random nonsensical letters and numbers.  It was boring, laborious work.  No wonder it fell to the least senior radio operators.  Once in awhile I was picked to take messages to the Captain of our vessel, or to one of the Division officers, but more often than not my watches were spent sitting at a typewriter, wearing earphones, my right hand at the ready above the telegraph “key.”.

The next 9-months was a blur...most days under-way spent performing replenishment of carrier battle groups in the Tonkin Gulf, followed by "hauling ass for port" to top off, usually in Subic Bay, P.I., then turning around as soon as possible and hauling back to replenish more ships. There was a brief rest and relaxation stay in Hong Kong and another in Kaohsiung, Taiwan...both cities were remarkable in their own way, but the (then) Royal Colony of Hong Kong, its neighborhoods clinging to the rocky island and mainland was mesmerizing for me.  The city was non-stop, and offered up every legal, carnal, and illegal activity you could think of, including some which I had never considered, or didn't know existed.  Proudly, I can announce here that I never did go to see "the Donkey and the girl have sex" as hawked by the street pimps.

Though the majority of Ashtabula’s cargo was thick bunker-oil, we also carried unstable and explosive aviation-gasoline (Av-Gas).  Our unstable cargo required that we 'anchor out' in the hazardous anchorage zone near Stone Cutter Island in the outer-harbor of Hong Kong, and similar locations at other ports, far from the busy water-front and the criss-cross of the ferries. Consequently, the motorized whale-boat ride into port from the ship allowed the city to be revealed in ever finer detail...the boat seeming to become smaller as the city loomed larger. When the breeze was right, the smell of several million 'lives' washed over the salt water long before a single human figure came into sight. Cooking smells, open sewers, unwashed bodies, incense, cottage industry, and the cities many lush parks conspired to produce a perfume that maybe only young men who’ve been breathing sea-air can smell.  This monster-city was alive and writhing with energy, commerce, met and unmet human needs, and dreams of immigrating to a better life in some other Crown Colony.

I never quite mastered the lay-out and details of the city; looking from the bay it seemed it should be easy to navigate, but once away from the waterfront, on foot in the maze of streets, I lost all sense of direction, and was guided here or there more by curiosity and various appetites, most often having to do with drink or food. Though I could find my way to where I wanted to go, my route was never traversed in a precise fashion. Because of this navigational weakness on my part, sometimes augmented by beer, Jack Daniels, or Absinthe, I accidentally saw parts of the city which I would have missed had I been a more skilled navigator, and seldom developed a routine to or from course to anywhere. At the time there were parts of the colony which were deemed 'off limits' to U.S. service-men. Though the Navy hardly ever explained the why of any 'off-limits' it mostly had to do with physical dangers of robbery, or illegal activities in the area; illegal activities more often than not consisted of gambling, prostitution, availability of drugs, and on rare occasion something having to do with mainland  China and ‘demonstrations’ by various political factions.  Placing an area 'off limits' was akin to advertising it's virtues to most of us enlisted sailors. Clearly if the Officers didn't want us to go there, it was necessary to get there as soon and as often as possible...hence my habit of roaming the Wanchai District of Hong Kong...entirely off limits during all 3 of my visits to the colony.

How can I describe Hong Kong in the 60's?  The 'war' in South East Asia had boosted the port from being simply one of the world's busiest material and financial trading centers, to being overrun by the combined hungry, thirsty, horny Allied military (U.S., Canada, New Zealand, South Korea, Australia and the rest of the U.K.) looking to quench a large collective thirst and more than a few carnal appetites. Tons and tons of 'black market' goods were finding their way out of South Viet Nam, if they ever actually arrived there before being diverted to non-military customers; thanks to the impeccable, creative accounting and asset management of those same combined military services, buyers could purchase almost anything which had ever been shipped to Viet Nam, and sometimes could receive it before it even would have reached it's intended destination farther South.

Hong Kong was also a supplier for the illicit needs of the constrained citizens of the People's Republic of China...all of the largess of the decadent West flowed from Hong Kong into main-land China, smuggled, while sympathetic and reputedly well-bribed border guards turned a blind eye to the 'trade' flowing through their gates in both directions. Indeed just up the way from Hong Kong in the Portuguese Colony of Macao there were no trade barriers whatsoever for any product or service, including human trafficking.  Reputedly, in 1965 one could take still take written legal deed to another human in Macao, if you had the assets and the connections; of course, justifying owning another human got a bit tenuous after leaving Macao, unless your purchase was going to the Middle East.

As I remember, large purchases in Hong Kong were 'duty free.' We marveled at the relative cost differences of some of the big-ticket necessities, such as, Mercedes Benz and Rolls Royce vehicles, compared to their U.S. price. However, my trading level was somewhat constrained by my meager earnings at the time. Thankfully, I left Hong Kong with nothing but the receipt for a pair of dress trousers and a couple dress shirts, custom-tailored by a local craftsman, which would be shipped to me in Hawaii sometime later; and, to this day I wear a 'cat's-eye' opal ring that I bought at the Royal Navy's South China Fleet Club. Some of my unfortunate, less discriminating friends left Hong Kong bearing the burning sensations and additional scars of their 'purchases' which required multiple weeks of antibiotics as a form of 'payment over time' for their moral lapses.

After nine months of refueling aircraft carriers and their defensive vessels in SE Asia, the Ashtabula went 'home' to San Pedro, California near Long Beach. I expected to be in home-port for 3 or 4 months, including the Operational Readiness Inspections, and then turn around and come back to SE Asia. What I didn't know was the Ashtabula had been invited to take part in the annual Battle of the Coral Sea Celebration, which included visits to multiple ports in Thailand, Singapore and Australia. When I found this out I was excited beyond belief! Going to the Coral Sea celebration and those ports was almost too good to be true...and, as it occurred, it was actually too good to be true, because within two weeks I, and other first enlistment personnel, started receiving orders transferring us to other bases and ships which were not going to the Coral Sea event; in my case, the new duty was to be a Pacific Fleet ship (USS Abnaki) which was destined for SE Asia from Pearl Harbor in 1965. The Coral Sea Celebration was too precious to waste on us first-time enlistees.  Where possible we newbies were replaced in every department of the ship by the loyal 'lifers' or perhaps those who were having to decide whether to reenlist.  The Navy takes care of its own!  Incidentally, this "slight" was among the reasons I didn't reenlist and stay in the Navy...not one of the main reasons, but it remained a lingering resentment, and a slight which I would remember when it came time to reenlist in the service.

So I had orders transferring me from the Ashtabula to the Abnaki, starting with a month of shore-leave to visit home and friends. However, due to being arrested by Long Beach City Police the night before I was due to transfer, I left the Ashtabula in the afternoon of my 20th birthday, Saturday November 16, 1963; most of that morning it appeared that I was going to be delayed, perhaps in the brig, so that I could endure 'nonjudicial punishment' for the crime of embarrassing the U.S. Navy with my misbehavior in the City of Long Beach, California, although as embarrassments go, my transgressions were fairly puny; preceding 'the great embarrassment' I had been awake for 3-straight days of on-board duty, and an equal number of nights of revelry with some of my friends, who were sending me off with no small amount of jeering for missing the Coral Sea Celebration, and late on the 3rd night, having had almost no alcohol that day, I sat down on the fender of a vacant police car awaiting my friend Willie who was attempting to talk a waitress into allowing us to crash at her nearby apartment. My next conscious sensation was of being poked in the ribs by one of Long Beach's finest, prodding me awake with his night-stick or flash-light, arresting me for 'public drunkenness' and transporting me to the city's fine lock-up facility...so ended my 'crime spree' in Long Beach.

Next morning at the godawful hour of 7 a.m., an armed Bos'un's Mate from the ship arrived in his dress-blues, complete with "SP" arm-band and Colt .45 standard issue to transport me back to the ship, in hand-cuffs of course, because it was entertaining for him and others to be able to transport someone from "Operations" -  those who handle communications, radar, sonar, navigation and the like...in other words, we were the guys with high school diplomas and no criminal background...and as such were rarely brought back aboard under arrest.  I was not happy to provide this entertainment for my ship-mates which made up the deck-force and engineering crew.  Plus, it was beginning to seep into my consciousness that I might end up in a Marine brig, awaiting punishment, since I had already been ordered off the Ashtabula.

Once aboard, I drew the "luck card" because the Officer in Charge was Mr. Hampton, a Lt. Commander and the head of Operations...in other words, my enlisted boss's, officer-boss...with whom I had an amiable relationship, and a fair amount of contact as a courier with a high security clearance. I was able to lobby the Officer in Charge that it would be a waste of time to keep me aboard for a Captain's Mast when by just giving me my all-ready printed and signed orders I could go down the gang-way and be out of his life forever...but, if I stayed, who knew what might happen? It might drag on and they could end up taking me to the Coral Sea Celebration at the expense of one of their precious 'lifers.' He saw the logic, sent me off the ship with my orders, and a warning to not make him sorry.  I started my shore-leave by hitch-hiking from Long Beach to Tucson, Arizona to visit my church and high school friends, including Jim Brogdon and Cherry Beck, but the trip to Tucson bears recounting.

This hitch-hiking trip was the seeming endless trip from Hell! Let's take pre-trip inventory here: I had been up the better part of 4-days now, with a scant 5-hours of sleep in the Long Beach drunk-tank, followed by being let go from the ship sometime around four in the afternoon, at which time I rode a cab to the freeway entrance where I started hitchhiking. On my first ride I got picked up by a sexual predator who wanted to touch me in places my bathing suit covered, though I was wearing dress-blues, and worse yet, he wouldn't stop the car and let me out till I threatened to beat him senseless though we were going 70 mph; he dropped me off, left in a huff, and, I got immediately ticketed  by a CHP Officer in Colton, CA for hitch-hiking on a controlled access highway (a ticket which, unpaid for 2 years, later resulted in a bench-warrant for my arrest should I ever enter the great state of California).  My mother ultimately convinced the Court to let her pay the original $45 fine.

I was next picked up by a drunk couple on their way to a weekend tryst at the Salton Sea...a happening place for the trailer-trash seeking to get away from their city double-wides, and legal mates in the 60's.  This modern love-story was playing out in the front-seat, with heated bouts of clutch and tickle between the driver and his ‘squeeze’ while navigating the now dark highway with one hand and one-eye, while both sucked down vodka screw-drivers from a large thermos.  Purely out of self-defense and a wise fear of meeting my Maker, I suggested to the horny driver that possibly I could drive so they could be properly attentive to each other in the back seat. They agreed, and though I lived long enough to tell this story, likely because I took the wheel that night, I was summarily evicted from their car when I took the highway on the South side of the Saltine Sea, while they had wanted the North side of that stinking piece of waterfront.  My wrong turn went unnoticed because they were occupied with each other to the point of oblivion, which was punctuated by (perhaps) several ‘happy ending’s on her part...I was surprised they weren't more grateful for the time alone which I had provided, but, the night was young, and I was learning that no good deed would go unpunished.

Never the less, I was again picked up after a few minutes, this time by a pleasant however badly intoxicated young Hispanic fellow, one of many agricultural workers near Indio, California who at the time were referred to as 'Mes'cans'. Soon after picking me up, he had discarded his lit cigarette out the driver's window, only to have it blow back through the back window, unbeknownst, onto the back seat, resulting eventually in a very noticeable orange, quickly spreading flame in the back-seat, fanned by the hot, desert wind coming through the wide opened back windows.  We stopped on the shoulder, and first tried simultaneously urinating on the back-seat to douse the spreading fire, but, in desperation, ended up pouring the better part of a half-case of beer and a half-gallon of red-wine on it before it stopped blazing.

We got going again, somewhat sobered by the near catastrophe, now nearing El Centro, CA.  When he had to turn and head North, I thanked him for the ride and entertainment, got out, and was standing along side a lightly traveled rode, on a warm night, in solid darkness except for the stars above.  Almost immediately I was picked up by four farm workers (3 Black and 1 White) also drunk who ultimately used me as a counter decoy while they pilfered liquor at an all night liquor store in El Centro, CA; one of the Black gentlemen, named "Red" apparently had been treated badly by White people and seemed intent on making even the score at my expense, though he and the others acknowledged that I had done them and Red no personal harm.  I explained to Red and others in the car that to my knowledge my family had owned no slaves, and I had never directly harmed a Black person. (It should be noted that this statement was a minor falsehood because I had in fact beat up a little Black kid, in order to please a much admired, older Cousin in St. Louis when I was 8 years old.)  Red again muttered his intent to harm me in some fashion before we permanently parted ways. Thankfully, one of the others was able to reason with him along the lines that killing a serviceman in uniform was not patriotic. They dumped me out in Yuma, Arizona when they turned off the main highway, which would later become Interstate-8, to proceed to their next farm job  Then as now, the valley North of Yuma was a large source of employment for itinerant farm hands of all races, creeds, colors, and in Red's case, temperaments.

After hiking a ways East of Yuma, complete with my full sea-bag, about 40-lbs of stuff, I encountered some crazy local guy whose introduction out the window of his custom-muscle car was, "You know we kill sailors around here!"  I learned later that indeed, in the not too distant past, a hitchhiking sailor had in fact been killed and discarded by some unknown assailant.  I don't remember my response but in my defense, I was beginning to feel a bit fatalistic about my trip, and replied something to the effect that “At this point I’m not sure I care if I die!”  I was resigned, as it were, to the possibility that virtually everything was going to go wrong, including my own early demise.  Apparently he felt my comment deserved transport on over to Gila Bend, after a short-stop at his girl friend's to explain why he would be late.  The trip went quickly because "Gomer's" muscle car speed never dropped below 100 miles per hour the entire 60-some miles.  I was very happy to disembark in Gila Bend, and catch my next ride, which must have been safe, because I fell asleep and have absolutely no memory of the individual, or the rest of the ride.  The trip from Gila Bend to Tucson has been entirely lost from my mind, the result no doubt of sleep deprivation, a modest hangover, fear, and of course, the passage of years of time.

In any case, I blacked-out until the driver woke me up in North Tucson, at the exit for Miracle Mile.  Because of all the craziness and misroutes, the delays put me late into Tucson on Sunday afternoon, a full 24-plus hours after leaving Long Beach. However, I also learned during that 24 hour period that alcohol, when applied with courtesy, humility, and understanding is not only a social equalizer, it has the potential to be a life-saver, and a fire-suppressant for a minor car-fire, provided the alcohol content of the liquid is not too high. It was now Sunday November 17, 1963.

I must have called the church or Jim's house, I don't remember which now, and left a message about where I was...on Oracle Road near "The Miracle Mile" intersection, so Jim and Cheri (pronounced ‘Cherry’) Beck could retrieve me from the restaurant I was camped out in. When Jim and Cheri showed up they were welcome sights...sober, clean, dressed for church, friendly faces from the near-past, glad to see me, providing me a chance to eat and a place to sleep...on the couch at Jim's house as I remember. I spent the next four days just reconnecting with people I'd gone to school with, including my Literature teacher Harriet Martin and my Guidance Counselor Frances Smith at Tucson High School. Miss Martin and Miss Smith had played a huge part in some of my early decision making, and provided more resources to me than my poor academic efforts deserved.  I wanted to demonstrate to them that while not National Honor Society material just yet, I was at least not a total detriment to society as some of my class-mates had predicted I would be, unless you count that whole Long Beach thing.  Of course, there would be several future offenses against humanity, though they would pale if compared to Lt. Calley at My Lai, for instance.

The following Friday I was to meet Jim Brogdon after his last class at the University of Arizona, and as I remember we were going to shoot some pool at Louie's Lower Level in the student union building, then drag Speedway including Johnnie's Drive-In and other custom-car hangouts during the night. I don’t recall how I was transporting myself; perhaps Jim was letting me use his car.  Our pool game was not to be...this was November 22, 1963, and as I entered the student union building the news of John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas was just playing out on the black and white TV in the student union common-area. Students and faculty were standing around the television watching those unique, awe-filled moments, many crying, some ashen-faced and in shock...while I was a fairly calloused and street-wise kid, I must admit that the possibility that a President of the United States could be assassinated was surreal to me at the time; my unpracticed mind equated power with being untouchable. Later the radio in Jim's car reported that all military on leave were ordered to complete their ordered leave and report to their next ordered assignments. The time between the day after Kennedy’s assassination and my December 24th arrival at my next ship have been lost to time. I can only assume I hitched from Tucson to the Northwest to visit friends and family, then found an air-hop to Hawaii.  

I had initially remembered arriving at the salvage docks, at the entrance to Pearl Harbor on a sunny afternoon, made warmer by the fact that I was wearing the mandatory travel uniform of the U.S. Navy, dress-blues. But, in fact the ship’s logs indicate that I came aboard between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. on December 24th, where the ship was moored at the Sierra docks at the entrance from the sea to Pearl Harbor.  As I went aboard, I was immediately struck by the difference in size and environment of this ship, compared to the Ashtabula;  it was not even a third the length of the Ashtabula, and there was no pomp and circumstance whatsoever at the Quarter Deck. When boarding the Ashtabula one would encounter an Officer, a Petty Officer, and a messenger, all in crisp "whites' or dress-blues depending on the climate. The Abnaki's Quarter Deck was manned by a single 3rd Class Bosun's Mate, dressed in denim "dungarees" which were the manual labor clothing of the Navy. The Abnaki was a 'fleet seagoing tug' - as opposed to a harbor tug. Fleet-tugs were used to do all manner of duties, including: salvage towing, relocating vessels, such as dredges, dragging gunnery targets, dragging sounding devices (when we assisted sonic mapping the beach for the Marine landing at Da Nang), and performing interdiction, search and seizure of small vessels running contraband from international waters in the South China Sea into the Mekong Delta area. We would also search for downed fliers off North Viet Nam, as well as, members of a Swift Boat which mysteriously detonated near Yankee station one night.  And for months at a time in the Springs of 1965 and ‘66, we ran interference with Skunk Delta, a Russian "harassment" trawler, to keep her from running afoul of the carrier based air-operations going on South East of Haiphong. In short, "fleet tugs" as they were called were work-horses, without the usual puffery that would be present on even an Oiler like the Ashtabula, and certainly on a destroyer or guided missile frigate, or other specific purpose vessel.

The Abnaki could navigate in relatively shallow water, at up to 12 knots, and had enough fuel and dry supplies to stay at sea indefinitely; fresh-food, however, was depleted within 12 or 14-days unless an underway replenishment could be arranged. Long before the Swift Boats were organized up the coast Viet Nam, and before John Kerry bumped his head, got his Purple Heart and became an anti-war hero, we were patrolling the coastal waters from just South of China to the South Tonkin Gulf 500 or so miles North of the Equator. I went to the Abnaki December 24, 1963 and left her in July of 1966 while we at Subic Bay, PI.

I wanted to be in SE Asia but not necessarily on a vessel as pedestrian as a 'tug.' So when the opportunity came to volunteer for the recently organized Swift Boats I did so. To make a long story short I was rejected on the basis of my paper application without so much as an interview. The early recruiting for the Swift Boats was very idealistic.  They were looking for "John Kerry's" because there were lots of photo ops and lots of scrutiny, including "congressional interest" in how all that money for SWIFT Boats was being spent.  My service 'record' had by then become unacceptable. I had accumulated a substantial history of undisciplined behavior, including a 'Captain's Mast' (the Navy version of non-judicial punishment)...in short I was the 'loose cannon' which was not destined to be a SWIFT Boat crewman...looking back from here I have to admit that it was a wise decision on some one's part though I complained mightily about it at the time; I later challenged the decision in person during a stay in Subic Bay, saying to the Administrative Officer, among other things, "So you'd rather send some 'brown-bagger' (married guy) with a family than a single guy...how does that make sense? The young Officer looked at me and said simply, "The married guys bring our boats back!" Later on, the Swifts and "Brown Water Navy" Riverine boats became a bit more realistic in their recruiting but once rejected, the decision was not to be revisited by me or the Navy.

In all -- during my four-plus active service years in the Navy -- I was denied Nuclear Sub service (applied for while in Radio "A" School), Swift Boats, and an Antarctic Expeditionary Forces attempt after being denied Swift Boats. If I had to guess about my motives for volunteering for Antarctica, I think I just wanted to do something 'special' or 'stand-out' in in some fashion; spending 24 hours at a time locked in a radio-shack and crypto vault was not terribly heroic...incidentally, this same need nearly got me involved with (I think) Che Guevara's outfit in South America by way of a mercenary recruiter after I left the service. Because I had tactical radio operation and radio repair skills, as well as some light weapons training I was potentially attractive as a mercenary field-radio operator recruit...it also helped that the recruiter did not have access to my official U.S. Navy service record, otherwise I'm sure that Che Guevara, or some other Latino guerrela, would have found me 'unacceptable for duty' as well! The story of how I didn't go to Colombia as a mercenary is yet another story for another time.

As it occurred, while on the Abnaki, I saw more interesting duty than I had on the Ashtabula; the Ashtabula was essentially a big fuel delivery vehicle which ran a route back-and-forth to it's customers on or near Yankee Station, while the Abnaki did 'projects' over the entire length of the Tonkin Gulf, and even further South, including:
1.) Assigned to a Mine Flotilla to drag a sonic transponder in order to do a 'map' of the 'beach' at Da Nang...a beach that would later, March 8, 1965,  become the only amphibious Marine landing of the war
2.) Assigned to pick-up a 'target raft' at Johnston Atoll and perform a deep water anchor of that raft so the U.S. Airforce could test a new, top-secret, B-52 bomb-sight. The raft emitted a variety of electro-magnetic signals (visible light, running gasoline motor and generator, infra-red, radio-frequency, and more) all of which the bomb-sight could use to hone in from above 52K feet...it was said that the planes bombardier built in a 3 degree error so as not to destroy the raft.
3.) On Dixie Station we performed interdictions, stopping sampans trying to come back into the Mekong Delta from Chinese, Polish, and Russian freighters in international waters, presumably carrying weapons, ammo, and medical supplies for the VC.  Our interdiction actions were deemed "legal" because we carried a Vietnamese Naval Officer aboard who gave us case by case authority to intercept, and board.
4.) For months at a time, we dogged 'Skunk Delta' on Yankee Station.  Skunk Delta was the radar blip name for the Russian "fishing" trawlers, which interfered with carrier flight operations and communications; once airborne, the sorties were mere-minutes from Haiphong and Hanoi.
5.) We towed a large harbor dredge from Johnston Atoll, with a destination of Yokosuka, Japan; the dredge flooded and capsized during a massive tropical typhoon, endangering our vessel in the process.
6.) We towed gunnery and missile targets for other ships and “Fire Fly” targets for planes to fire on.
7.) We carried 4 tons of C-3 explosives in diving 44-lb canvas back-packs, and the SEAL team members who would place the explosives to widen the shipping channel at Johnston Atoll.
...and there were more day to day incidents which have become fuzzy over time, including "one off" towing missions for sundry vessels.

I left the Abnaki from Subic Bay in July 1966, with my friend 'Robert-not-Bob' Knapp, an Electronics Technician from Pennsylvania. (Robert-not-Bob had a ‘thing’ about being called Bob). We hired a car and driver to take us to Clark AFB; we took our time, stopping at roadside cantinas to sample the local and national beers, all having the same name, San Miguel; the driver too, drank his share of the "free" beer. I had orders to report to the Treasure Island, California processing station to be mustered out to Inactive Reserve duty. As coincidence would have it, this was precisely the week that the Boy Scout Jamboree was being held on the mainland and magically, we returning Vietnam veterans were bumped from flight after flight over a 4 day period by military brats, their Air Force troop leaders and parents streaming back to the U.S. at the tax-payers expense for the Scout Jamboree in Indiana or some other white-society outpost.  Meanwhile, we languished without proper quarters or food authorizations; even the officers who could have granted temporary housing and food were off to the Jamboree.  Yippee!

We lived in the base theater, enlisted men's club, and the airport waiting room for the better part of four days, and finally were flown out on separate aircraft. I never saw Knapp again, even at Treasure Island. It may be that he was processed out at Great Lakes. In any case, the event at Clark AFB gives you an idea how little our society valued returning Viet Nam vets; this was in the mid-60's, and it was destined to get worse for the returning "baby killers."   The civilian population, fully informed of our atrocities by the evening national news, was even less benevolent, unless of course, the returning vet was one of their own.  Clark Air Force Base is no longer there, having been wiped out by anti-American sentiment, and the volcano of Mount Pinatubo.  On Google Earth, the reclaimed area now appears to be some sort of industrial park and possibly houses a small airport.

Upon arriving at Travis Air Force Base in the Bay Area, the returning Navy personnel were gathered and bused to Treasure Island, a rock just off the west side of the Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland. I spent almost a week there being weighed, probed in all orifices, observed for tropical diseases, checked for VD, threatened regarding the secrecy and top-secrecy of what I had seen and handled in my work, reminded of my security clearance, as well as, the penalty for breaking the trust of SEATO and NATO, and several other equally mundane activities, such as the bomb-sight testing in the South Pacific in violation with at least the spirit of some treaty with Russia. In fact the administrative activities necessary to actually produce my DD-214, and complete my separation from active service should have taken no more than 3-hours of effort, but the Navy managed to stretch the tasks into almost a week.

Still this brief stay let me become acquainted with some newly developed "pop" culture, that being, young underclad women in white boots, dancing in elevated cages in "Go-Go Bars."  (Equal at last, equal at last, thank God Almighty equal at last!)  Thinking back on those scenes from this vantage point in the 21st Century, those '60's events seem relatively "prudish" when compared to the carnal treats available to most everyone today. And to my surprise, on my last day on 'TI' as Treasure Island was called, in this atmosphere of high-value for me as a serviceman, my being bumped from the Coral Sea celebration, my various volunteerism rejections, and several non-judicial punishments, and of course, the most recent demonstration of my value by being bumped from return flights at Clark AFB, the Navy made one, last, long effort to convince me to 're-up' for another enlistment...dangling all manner of goodies in front of me to entice me to sign up for another 6-years.  That six, and my already four years, would likely seal the deal for life.  Almost no one retired voluntarily out of the Navy after10-years, because they have no retirement benefits whatsoever, including medical, and had by then likely become fully institutionalized.

The irony was, I had joined the Navy with full intention of making it my life and career. I wanted a life at sea, travel to foreign, particularly Asian, ports of call. What drove me out was the gut-rending ignorance, ineptitude, lack of decency, and absence of fraternity, demonstrated by most of the non-commissioned officers -- the Petty Officers (aptly named). And, I had recently learned that one could not voluntarily remain at sea for their career. Shore duty was inevitable. I could spend 3 - 5 years at a Navy Communications Station, for instance, Keflavik, Iceland or Rota, Spain at the whim of some anonymous Navy analyst and his computer.  That roll of the dice was just an unacceptable risk, so I discharged into the inactive reserves.  

Some of my old shipmates on the Abnaki are still friends today...Gary "The Burner" Born and Cranny-Rat (Mel Lantham) are email and Face Book friends. Ken Wetzler, perhaps my most enduring shipboard friendship, died in January 2006. 'Pop' Kelly, Gunners Mate First-Class, was one of the most decent humans I've ever met.  He was simple and uncomplicated.  He had been a young gunner on some vessel which was destroyed in a battle at Buckner Bay. He claimed he had been a Warrant Officer for awhile after that because most of their officers were killed in one attack on the bridge, and several men received promotion to warrant officer.  He was not given to enlarging anything, so I tended to believe him. And, in addition to my few enlisted buddies, I have very fond memories of a few officers who went the distance for us, and more, some on my personal behalf when I didn't deserve it...Captain Williams, Ltjg. Robert Turner from Oklahoma, Chief Warrant Officer James Hollis of San Diego., deceased in 2021.  And of course I remained friends with Jim Brogdon, now deceased, who didn't serve on the Abnaki, but was at Cubi Naval Air Station, in the Phillipines performing maintenance on jet engines.  Jim died convinced that his Muscular Dystrophy was a direct result of exposure to Agent Orange which had been sucked into the jet engines while doing low level bombing and strafing runs.  The VA remains unconvinced that Muscular Dystrophy of any variety is a presumptive disease of AO exposure.

“Vietnam” as a personal experience is a chapter in my history which will never be finished as long as I’m alive and my memory is working.  What occupies my “wonderment” is less my own personal actions and involvement, but more incredulous curiosity about WHY we could have gotten so involved at all.   I know now that the chapter called Vietnam will forever exist in draft-form, constantly edited, never quite complete until I am interred at the VA Memorial in Marana, Arizona.  

I’d like to think that our society and its government learned the lessons offered by our collective Vietnam experience, but it appears we have committed most of the same errors again and again in the four decades since Vietnam ended, and we even found some new fallacies to justify involvement in the lost causes of Iraq and Afghanistan, then slipping out the “back door” and abandoning our local allies to the violent whims of our common enemy when the bored onlookers at home become “fatigued” with the conflict.