27 Nov 2023
Dear All,
I also managed to miss the Conversation, to my great regret. I was surprised in these follow-up comments to learn that Tex and Rick were in-country about the same time I was. Like Rick, I was a Naval Advisory Group advisor (NAG 143), working with the VNN as a Coastal Surveillance Center watch officer at Tien Sha, north of Danang. We coordinated a series of radar sites along the coast and inland to monitor seaborne infiltration attempts. I was happy to end up there as my original orders were to replace the Political Warfare Officer at the 3rd Riverine group on the rivers north of Saigon. Nasty stuff. Those original orders sent me to a 6 month advisor training school in Coronado to learn the language, Vietnamese history and culture, and how to clean an M-16. I arrived just before Christmas 1971 and stayed through July of 1972. It was during that period that the so-called Easter Invasion occurred and my job quickly morphed to coordinating naval gunfire from the immense fleet that assembled on the gun line (6 aircraft carries at one point, the largest concentration of US naval forces since Midway) to deal with the 30,000+ regular NVA troop that had crossed the DMZ on their way south. It was a scary several months as the ARVN units in I Corps quickly collapsed and we began to get rocketed and had regular visits from the incredibly brave NVA sappers who’d swim across Danang bay to set limpet mines on the supply ships in the adjacent deep water harbor. Most memorable for me were several helo flights to supply our outlying radar sites while they were under mortar and artillery fire. It was at about this time that Jane Fonda was having tea with Ho Chi Minh and signing autographs for the NVA anti-aircraft crews around Hanoi. By mid-summer the NVA advances had been turned back and our unit was dissolved as part of the ongoing Vietnamization process. I finished my 4 NROTC commitment as an Admin Officer in South Boston and headed off to Cambridge University to study the novel. I did my Masters thesis on Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”, for which I felt myself well prepared.
George Cooke