Blood and Brown Water: I'm Not a Tourist, I Live Here

This is both a personal account of 3 years hauling whatever had to be moved on the rivers of the I-Corps Area of Vietnam; from 1965 to 1968 but also some history of what was the 'Lighterage' division (Coastal Operations) of NSA Da Nang. The US Navy kept no records of what our crews on the LCM (Mike) 8 boats did or where they served along with no records of what boat a particular person was assigned to. There's a whole list of our guys who were killed or wounded in direct support of most operations from 1965 to 1972. Small groups of our boats lived and died on the rivers where we did our job on; unlike our counterparts at the main support units, we were there 24/7. We took the rockets, the mortar fire and the artillery fire from the enemy at night. We stood perimeter watch with the Marines who were our security and were also supported by us. Sometimes our guys fought along side of them repelling ground attacks and died with them. Then, the next day, we boarded our boats and took 5 or 6 more loads up the river...many days like driving along in a shooting gallery, in a minefield. The rivers were all brown; the blood was all red. With little support of our own we lived like Pirates (part of the time), some days it was like Gilligan's Island, others it was like a bad episode of McHale's Navy. On about any day, anything you did could get you killed and, sometimes did. For our effort our unit was decorated; decorated and ignored by history...hung out to dry...on a dirty brown river. This book is part of that history.