Mekong Delta, Vietnam 1968

It was a pitch black night as we cruised in a Navy swiftboat through the Viet Cong controlled waterways of the Mekong Delta in the summer of 1968.

A few months earlier the Viet Cong had demonstrated its daring and determination with a world-changing Tet Offensive.

Assigned as a U.S. Army intelligence specialist with a small unit advising a South Vietnamese army company based in Ca Mau, I was on my second and final swiftboat ride through enemy territory.

I was not ordered to go out on that night time excursion, but my participation was not exactly by invitation either. It was more an act of kindness, a compassionate response to the pleadings of a thoroughly frightened comrade.

A few months earlier, our Army advisory team (a captain, a second lieutenant and three specialists including me) had been joined by a Naval Intelligence Liaison Officer (NILO).

After several of these night incursions into hostile territory accompanied only by a Vietnamese boatman, the NILO begged his American colleagues to go with him. 

As far as I could tell, and as far as I was told, the sole purpose of the NILO’s night incursions was to draw enemy fire; to have people shoot at him.

Perhaps the Vietnamese boatman could see the river banks, but we could see only blackness as we churned slowly through the water. Only from the rebounding echo of the boat motor’s low-pitched throbbing could we guess how close we were to the banks of the canal.

In our aluminum-sided, unarmored swiftboat, we were sitting ducks. Gliding through the water, waiting to be shot at, was one of the most frightening experiences of my life.

Even more frightening than the shooting was the seemingly interminable return trip to Ca Mau. We had been lucky to  survive unscathed, but could we possibly be so lucky the next time?

Every heartbeat, now racing, brought us closer to Ca Mau. The powerful stench of the fish sauce factory on the outskirts of Ca Mau was most welcome.

Thirty-six years later, I learn that a candidate running for president of the United States was commander of a U.S. Navy swiftboat running missions on the waterways of the Mekong Delta at the same perilous time. He was wounded three times in the service of his country His opponent in the election evaded service in Viet Nam as a politically-connected inductee to the Texas National Guard who then shirked even his safe, homeside duty.

—Jeff Radford