I'm a Vietnam veteran

And now i know more about that war

In 1968, I served as a naval officer on one of three aircraft carriers at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of Vietnam. I was not a pilot, but an officer trained to oversee the tracking of aircraft flying back and forth to North Vietnam on combat air patrol. A-4 bombers, protected from ground fire and enemy MiG aircraft by F-8 fighters, flew daily missions. Pilots of the carrier’s squadron were in danger each time they flew. I never heard any of them complain of their orders. They were committed and loyal patriots, and some were lost or MIA—missing in action—bodies not recovered, possibly imprisoned, as was John McCain. The fliers’ life onboard the ship was very different from mine.

I worked in a small radar room darkened with red light, the Combat Information Center, where I was surrounded by radarmen. Sailors tracked aircraft by writing with erasable markers in mirror fashion on the back of a large plexiglass board as skies were scanned with WWII radar equipment. I was in no danger, except the possibility of fire (one from flares that were accidentally ignited killed 44 men, mostly officers, on the USS Oriskany in 1966). There was also the remote possibility of an attack on the carrier from a fleet of boats coming at the Bonnie Dick from Haiphong harbor. The North Vietnamese taunted us when we were not flying by running a few small torpedo boats in our direction to force the ship to turn into the wind and prepare for launching fighters. The odds of a torpedo heading at us seemed a very slight risk. The reason we did not attack the harbor was an agreement of some sort between governments (Rules of engagement”) It all seemed like a game.

So, some of the men on the ship lived in danger, but the rest worked long days in support of these flights. I had no idea what these missions accomplished, where the bombs were dropped, and I didn’t think about it. The atmosphere on the ship was more like work in a US factory: do your job, work long hours, stay alert, follow orders.

We were given a few pages of printed news daily from the US—news, sports scores, trivia—nothing much on the Vietnam War, certainly no radio or television news. And I didn’t know anyone who showed much interest in the war, let alone question its mission. I had good friends on the ship, naval officers who were called “blackshoes,” by men in the flight squadron, who wore brown shoes. The navy wanted the two types of officers differentiated, still does.

Many wearing either color shoe lived a bachelor life when the ship was in its home port of San Diego, and we enjoyed R&R, rest and recreation, when the ship stopped every few months of its deployment in places like Japan, Hong Kong, or a base in the Philippines. I played golf on a visit to a country club in Singapore. We looked forward to the carrier’s return to home port. Life on the carrier was just a job.

On return to home port, I learned more about the Vietnam War.