Charlie Mike The Podcast
Charlie Mike The Podcast
Navy's Forgotten Heroes: The Swift Boat Legacy
Born on Veterans Day in San Antonio, Raul Herrera never expected his Navy enlistment for educational benefits would lead him into the heart of Vietnam's maritime battlefield. In this powerful conversation, Herrera takes us aboard PCF-79, one of the Swift Boats that fundamentally altered the course of the Vietnam War yet remains largely overlooked in military history.
Herrera's vivid recollections transport listeners to July 15, 1967, when his six-man crew intercepted and captured an enemy trawler attempting to deliver supplies to Viet Cong forces. This high-profile mission earned them recognition from South Vietnam's highest leadership but also placed a bounty on their heads. Just months later, an ambush would claim the life of Boatswain's Mate Bobby Don Carver, Herrera's tough-love mentor whose death would haunt him for decades.
Most compelling is Herrera's forty-year journey to document this overlooked chapter of military history, a process that ultimately provided healing from undiagnosed PTSD. His book "Capturing Skunk Alpha" stands as both personal catharsis and historical preservation, ensuring the contributions of Swift Boat sailors won't be forgotten as their numbers dwindle.
For anyone interested in untold military stories, the personal costs of war, or the healing power of storytelling, this episode offers profound insights from a veteran who transformed personal trauma into historical legacy.
For book purchases, presentations, or to contact Raul Herrera, visit skunkalpha.com or email raul@skunkalpha.com.
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This is Charlie Mike the podcast Veterans helping veterans. Talking about things happening in the veteran community, Things we've experienced and overcome, such as addictions, PTSD, depression, legal trouble, and we also promote veteran-owned businesses. If you're talking about it, we're talking about it. This is Charlie Mike the podcast.
Speaker 2:Yo, what's going on? Welcome back to another episode of Charlie Mike the podcast. As always, I'm your host, raul. Today I have a special guest in the house. You know, know I want to introduce you to Raul. How you doing, raul? So this is Raul Herrera. We've been trying to get you know, linked up so we can do do something together. You know, reading your story and and hearing a lot about you as a person and what you're doing out in the community is moving and you know, let's start off a little bit Will you do me a favor and tell the people who you are where?
Speaker 3:you're from. Yes, again, my name is Raul Herrera. I'm from San Antonio, texas, born and raised, born November the 11th 1946. It's Veterans Day, huh, you bet? Yeah, my mother had said that they threw a parade in my honor of arrivals because it was Veterans Day and, of course, san Antonio is a military town.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:So there were parades going on and the drums were playing. It was great. My mother was happy that they were celebrating my arrival.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Yeah, so San Antonio. How was life in San Antonio? Oh, of course.
Speaker 3:I was from the barrio and I lived closer to downtown than far west San Antonio, but still part of the barrio. I went to Catholic school, sacred Heart Elementary, and from there I went to Holy Cross High School. My mother had wanted me to continue a Catholic education, but my father, he wanted me to go to a school called Fox Tech. It was a technical school and they had a high-rated architectural class program. But no, my mother went out and so I wound up for another four years at Catholic Education at Holy Cross High School.
Speaker 2:Okay, so with that I got to ask okay, so what did your father do for a living? My father was a painter.
Speaker 3:He was a painter. He painted houses as well, but he worked for a contractor and did industrial painting and so on. I recall interesting, you mentioned this my father taught me what not to become. Aside from personal issues that he had, he taught me that you need to find an indoor job. So in order to teach me, I rode my bicycle. It's got to be at least eight miles to where he was working at this schoolhouse elementary school and back in those days they had no air conditioning and so there was a lot of hardware involved in painting the door, the trim and so on, so he needed some help.
Speaker 3:Those days they had no air conditioning and so there was a lot of hardware involved in painting the door, the trim and so on. So he needed some help and so he put me to work there. But of course the boss came along and said who's he? I said that's my son. He said, oh, okay, well, keep him working then. So they hired me. Actually that was my first job. Of course I became a gopher. The painters okay, soft drinks for lunch, but not, so I had to get on my bike and go to the grocery store and bring them some cold soda pops. So then eventually I became a spray painter's helper and I'd come home with my hair just painted. I remember my father shoving Vaseline up my nose because of all that spray paint. They had no masks at that time right.
Speaker 3:So Vaseline was the best way to prevent all that hair from getting in your nostrils and your lungs. And I told my father. I said I'm not going to be a painter. I promised no, I don't think you've learned. So I worked for two more years during the summer months as a painter and I said that's it. So that's why I studied hard and I wanted to become an architect, but that didn't work. I wound up going into the Navy. Why the Navy? Well, first, primarily because my parents couldn't afford a college education.
Speaker 2:So you initially enlisted for the education.
Speaker 3:Yeah, specifically for the education. I didn't know about Vietnam.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:I had, you know, a high school kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you didn't pay attention.
Speaker 3:You see the news, but you turn the channel, don't? You don't want to hear it and so, yes, I. I finally decided, after a summer program that I worked for for the city, um, I decided I needed to find a way to further my education in the navy. They didn't just offer it, they promised me drafting school. A little story about that once I got into boot camp. And I had boot camp in san diego, california, after I signed and I left. By the way, uh, yes, he says september. September, the 16th is when I took over. That's a mexican independence day okay yeah, so, um, but.
Speaker 3:But I wound up going to boot camp and during boot camp they have what they call classification. Classification is where you take a battery of exams to figure out what you're best suited for, and then they throw you into a big auditorium and the chief man in charge up there on the stage had handouts for all of us, and those handouts listed the schools that were no longer available, and Draftsmen Class A school was no longer available. So, seaman, recruit Raul Herrera raised his hand and the man says what do you want, son? I said well, chief, I joined the Navy because I was promised drafting school. And everybody started laughing and I couldn't understand why. To me it was the most difficult news I've ever had, because that's what I joined the Navy for to further my education.
Speaker 3:And coming out of classification, a lot of fellow recruits were disgruntled about the news of their school being closed, et cetera. The upperclassmen were waiting for us outside. Upperclassmen, I mean, by that time we were wearing dumb little old ball caps and we looked like death warmed over. You know, boot recruits right Right right right.
Speaker 3:And so the upperclassmen already had their little sailor hats on the white ones and they'd come in and break into a jingle and they'd say mothball, mothball, don't feel blue. Our recruiter screwed us too, and, by the way, mothball was what they called us boot recruits, because our uniforms were stored with mothballs to keep the silverfish from eating the material Right. And so we reeked like mothballs and that's why we got that name. It was the funniest thing. But eventually I told the man in charge of our crew of our group, the man in charge of our crew of our group and I told him that in high school I had been awarded first place for architectural contest, and with that my parents sent me the drawing plus three letters of recommendation, and with that in hand I went back to reclassification and they offered me drafting school. All of a sudden it was open once again.
Speaker 3:You know what they saw? This?
Speaker 2:guy's capable.
Speaker 3:But they also offered me door number two two years on-the-job training in San Diego, california.
Speaker 1:And hey, sunny California, the beach is right.
Speaker 3:I took door number two. Food for thought never pass up an education. So because my two years on on the job training turned out to just over a year, a little bit few months over a year. And then I got orders to swift boats so, um, so what year was this?
Speaker 2:did you enlisted in? 1965, was. Excuse me for not knowing this. I should know this, but Vietnam was Vietnam in the it was going. Oh yes, vietnam was a pretty, it was quite a few years correct.
Speaker 3:It was already getting very heavy because, just like I said in, 66 is when I got orders for swift boats and 67 January is when I went for a swift PCF crew training and nobody knew what a PCF was. Pcf stood for Patrol Craft Fast and that's what this is right here. Right, this is a model of the swift boat that I served on, pcf 79, patrol craft fast. So, yeah, but no, I, I didn't know anything about vietnam or what it was and the, the chiefs there in the drafting section, because I got orders to uh two, two years on the job training in San Diego, and he eventually told me he says, son, you're going to Vietnam. And it kind of like hit me, you know, cold blast of air hit me. And I said, my God, what's Vietnam? There's a war going on over there.
Speaker 3:So I started paying more attention to the news and geez, it turns out, through information researching the book there is there had been over hundreds of actual resupply vessels that had successfully entered South Vietnam to carry on their campaign of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese regulars operating in South Vietnam and they didn't realize that the arms were coming in from the sea. They thought they were all coming in from the Cambodia side, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, until an event of the Vung Ro incident took place and that was in February of 65, if I'm not mistaken, and that was in 65, february of 65, if I'm not mistaken A helicopter pilot was flying a non-urgent medical patient along the coast and south in mid-country of South Vietnam and as the helicopter turned inland to go to the hospital base, they flew over this peninsula and in the bay they noticed what appeared to be a floating island Because greenery, but it looked like it was moving. So they went in for a second look and couldn't determine what was going on. And when they went down for a much closer look they noticed that it was the decks, were potted plants and palm trees and shrubbery and machine gun fire started at them. Yeah, it was an enemy ship, it was a steel haul trawler and that was the first one.
Speaker 3:It was called a very famous incident. That's what turned everything. That was the catalyst to bringing about Swift Boats and Operation Market Time.
Speaker 2:So with that order to Swift Boats, did you know it? So what order did that consist of? Was that like an MOS, or was it just that Orders?
Speaker 1:Yeah, just orders, just orders. Yeah, and did they train you for?
Speaker 2:what you were going to be doing on the boat.
Speaker 3:Yes, when we went to Coronado in January of 67, we formed a crew and that was the first thing they did when they mustered us in front of the Swiftport headquarters and this is in Coronado, in Coronado, california, that's where the SEAL team trains. Well, they told us that we would be assigned crews and so the officers, the boat officers, the junior grade officers, lieutenant JGs, lieutenant Junior Grades they'd call out individuals, grades, they'd call out individuals and they'd call out the boat officer's name and the boat officer would raise his hand and the individual would go towards that skipper. And came time for me and they said Seaman Herrera, and I raised my hand and said point to an officer over there, lieutenant JG Edward Bergen. So I marched over there and there was a gruff stout chunking boatswain's mate standing next to him, and so I saluted Mr Bergen and then he introduced he says this is our boats' mate, this is boats.
Speaker 3:And I went to shake hands with Carver and he just looked at me up and down, just looked at me up and down and he had a reddish-brown hair and he had a handlebar mustache and he twirled his mustache and he just looked at me and he says whatbar mustache? And he twirled his mustache and he just looked at me and he says what's going on, bean? And just like you're standing there, you know, bean, that's a slur right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah but that was a little bit too big for me to try to do anything about it, right yeah? And it turns out that Bean has been my call sign for the longest time In recent years. Even some of my fellow SWIFT mates officers and enlisted as well they seem to shy away from calling me Bean, and I don't like that. I enjoy when my friends and my fellow SWIFT mates call me Bean because it was given to me by my mentor and my nemesis, bobby Don Carver.
Speaker 3:And he's the one that's pictured here on this 8x10. And that's Bobby Don Carver right there, the one that's pictured here, right here on this 8x10. That's Bobby Don Carver, right there. I'll tell you more about that later on.
Speaker 2:I got questions Okay so in a boat, in a Swift boat. So this was Swift boat 79,. What I see? You had three .50 Cals.
Speaker 3:We had .250 Calibers in the gun tub up front on top of the pilot house. Okay, .250 caliber machine guns. Back in the fantail after a section of the swift boat was a single .50 caliber machine gun mounted atop an 81-millimeter mortar. Oh, and our ammo-ready box was back in here where we had all the mortars.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:We had illumination rounds, high explosives, white phosphorus rounds as well, 81 millimeter mortar, and my job again, I was a designated. I was designated a draftsman a striker they call it because I wanted to be a draftsman, so they called draftsman striker. But they picked me up just the same and threw me on a shipboat, and so they needed a radio radar man, and so I wound up becoming the boat's radio radar man. What is a okay? So what does that consist of?
Speaker 2:You are basically looking at radars.
Speaker 3:Well, yes, there was a radar in the pilot house and a photometer to measure the depth below us. See, our swift boat was part of Operation Market Time, which was coastal surveillance preventing enemy ships from infiltrating resupply vessels from infiltrating supplying the enemy forces in South Vietnam resupply vessels from infiltrating supplying the enemy forces in South Vietnam. Well, my job was to stand next to the person that was driving the boat. Typically it was my boat officer, lieutenant JG Edward Bergen, but oftentimes there were other instances where I didn't have to be there 100% of the time. When we're on a patrol out in the ocean, going back and forth in our patrol area, well, it was very relaxed and you know there may be somebody else driving the boat, but at all times we had our different stations the gun mount on top of the paddock house behind the 250s. Someone would always be there at the ready and we'd only uncover the aftermath when going to the general quarters or something Right.
Speaker 3:We had an engine man. We had the boatswain's mate. He's the one who basically handles the maintenance and sees to it that the boat is in top shape for patrol. That's the boatswain's mate and the engine man. Then we had the gunner, who happened to be a torpedo man. That was his MOS, as you say. His rate was at a third class torpedo man, bob Middleton, and, as I said before, the boatswain's mate was Bobby Dunn Carver. Our engine man was Ronald Reinhardt and we trained those individuals, trained together in San Diego and Coronado, and when we got to Vietnam we picked up our fifth enlisted man, the deckhand, the seaman. That was Timothy McNamara.
Speaker 2:So in a boat this size in the water? How many people consist of the crew?
Speaker 3:Five enlisted and one junior grade boat officer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay, right, and so when you're on the like, okay, is this a 24-hour station?
Speaker 3:Yes, we leave in the morning, I'd go out and gather stores, as we call it groceries Right For the 24-hour patrol, most of the time sandwiches, right it groceries Right For the 24-hour patrol. Most of the time sandwiches, right, you know, okay. And soda pop, or we call it bug juice, which is Kool-Aid, yeah, you know. And so we had a refrigerator, we called it a reefer. Inside the cabin we had a refrigerated storage area.
Speaker 3:So we kept the food there, but sometimes we'd wind up getting steaks or something by chance, or we'd put it alongside a destroyer. We'd get some ice cream and some good meals off of them.
Speaker 2:Now, raul, I have to ask. You are a published author Capturing Skunk Alpha. How did it come about? What was the point? What made you write this book?
Speaker 3:This man right here, bobby Dunn Carver, was the reason why this book came to pass. Was the reason why this book came to pass when I returned from Vietnam. Let me go back just a little bit. That first chapter, spirit, took place on December the 6th 1967.
Speaker 3:Well, that's when he was killed. When we captured the ship the trawler on July the 15th 1967, carver was the individual right here on the fantails after Mount 52. He was standing behind the machine gun and the mortar, and this mortar was unique. You know how mortars usually up and down, right, you drop it, and the higher the angle, the closer the enemy is, right, right? Well, this mortar had the ability to go to trigger fire mode.
Speaker 2:I've never heard that. Yes, sir, that was the thing.
Speaker 3:So, as we're attacking the trawler and we were within 75 yards ultimately we were within 75 yards of the enemy ship as it approached the mouth of the Saki River on the Batangan Peninsula and this is south of Da Nang and south of Chulai as well Our boat officer and I was standing right next to him in the pilot house making sure that we were getting close to some hazardous areas.
Speaker 3:So I had to make sure that I warned him to be careful in those areas and kept my eyes on radar and radio communications as well. But he ordered the bosom mate to fire a round of high explosive and he missed. He loaded, hand-loaded, a round of 81-millimeter white phosphorus, lowered the barrel, took aim and fired that round and it went directly in the pilot house of that ship on the left-hand side, which is the port side, and that thing I mean. I was in the pilot house and it was ahead of us. The trawler was ahead of us and I saw the explosion. It turned into just a white ball of flame and we figured no one could have survived that no one could have survived that.
Speaker 3:No one could have survived that, and it forced the vessel to run aground and we was able to capture it. But long story short, the Viet Cong knew that it was PCF-79 who had brought that trawler down, and so they had a bounty out for us, and on December the 6th, we were ordered to do a psychological warfare mission which was called Chuhoy give up your arms. It was broadcast. We had speakers on the left-hand side, on top of the cabin, and they were broadcasting the propaganda aimed at the enemy to lay down their arms and come to our side as we approached. You may or may not have heard of the my Lai Massacre. It was a very difficult, terrible situation where an army officer and his men massacred some civilians.
Speaker 3:It was a my Lai massacre, a village of my Lai. You said my Lai, yes, m-y-l-a-i, two words, m-y-l-a-i. Well, there was a river south of that area, and again, this my Lai village is just south of where we captured the ship, and just south of that area was a river, sang Tra Kuk. It was the river that led to Quang Nai City. Well, just right north from that entrance, that river entrance, were three little hamlets, three little groups of huts.
Speaker 3:It was called Kole, kole 3, kole 2, kole 1, south to north, and ultimately we passed once, we passed twice and on the second pass between Kole 2 and Kole 1, we got ambushed by three bunker positions ahead of us, in the middle of us and behind us. And Carver took a round through his right eye and he still had a pulse when he was in the helicopter after he evacuated but he passed. And bringing back to when the chapter Spirit I read, that took place not the night of December the 7th, it took place the next night, because the first night we got back to base and we were so torn up that we drank ourselves to sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's understandable.
Speaker 3:And the following night, as I lay in bed, is when Chapter 1 takes place. Spirit, our boat officer was transferred to separate duties because he was going to be leaving country soon, and the rest of the crew was split up the gunner, bob Middleton, and I. We stayed on the 79 boat and another crew came on, a new boat officer, an engine man, and so on. Months passed, time came close. It was time to leave. May of 68. April of 68. Late April of 68. And by that time, yeah, I had difficulty going on the back of the fantail, especially at night, because, knowing he had died on this boat, that I was still on patrol. So it was a difficult time. But I came home and I felt fortunate that I hadn't experienced any physical, no bullet wounds. I don't have a purple heart and I gave thanks for that because you know, I said, wow, I'm back.
Speaker 3:But I'd see vets obviously Vietnam War veterans in San Antonio, long hair and wearing their greens and bush hats and their jungle boots, and they looked a little disturbed from my point of view Right, and I thank God that I survived all that mental anguish. What brought this book about is that little by little, I started having difficulty taking showers. I couldn't go to the bathroom and close the door. Fright came over me, chills came over me. I felt the bosun's make presence around me. I felt it. I mean it would make my hair stand on end and back in those days there wasn't anything called PTSD.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so you just don't talk about those things with even your buddies, you just don't, much less your spouse or anyone else.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And eventually I wound up. Not I wouldn't take showers because I didn't want to close my eyes and shampoo my hair, because I knew that the minute I'd open my eyes I'd see Carver's bloody face, just like I'm seeing you face to face right now, and that just destroyed me. I just kept dealing with it. That's what you did. You didn't seek help. I just kept dealing with them. That's what you did. You didn't seek help. It wasn't until, at then, my first wife's mother, my children five children that I have.
Speaker 3:her grandmother took the entire family to Greece, to the island where her house was a little village, and I was sitting on the beach with my son and I saw out in the GNC beautiful ocean. I saw a tattered fishing sailboat tattered sails and a flashback. I don't know if you've had flashbacks yourself. Yes, sir, my flashbacks are diesel fumes because the back of the Swift boat the smell if I go behind a diesel, I mean I'm back there again.
Speaker 3:And so again I flashback to Carver and you know, I kept questioning in my mind Carver boats, why are you doing this to me? You know, why are you tormenting me? And as I'm sitting there watching the sailboat, that fishing boat, well, it just dawned on me like an epiphany. He wants me to tell the story. He wants me to tell the story. He wants me to tell his story. He wants me to tell our crew's swift boat story on PCF 79 and the overall swift boat story which, to date. I feel very disappointed that, unfortunately, vietnam War history tends to exclude the Navy's participation and accomplishments during the Vietnam War and in particular the swift boats, because we shut down that North Vietnam mission of resupplying their troops through the sea and that's why the story came about. I came home, my mother gave me letters that she had saved. I numbered the letters chronologically by date order one two, three, five.
Speaker 3:The last letter that I wrote to my parents turned out to be 79. That's my boat number. Oh wow, pcf 79. Yeah, I gathered information. I wrote to the government asking under the Information Act.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Freedom Act right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, freedom of Information Right and I started receiving documents, confidential, declassified confidential documents. I did a chronology of the events taking place in the United States the race riots at that time, turmoil, anti-war protesting, everything. I did an outline but when I started actually writing the first chapter, what I thought would be the first chapter when I started writing the story, all those episodes in the shower stopped and I haven't had them since. It was your therapy.
Speaker 3:It was a catharsis, a major catharsis. The day doesn't go by, I mean, look at us, here we are. I'm talking about Bobby Don Carver, my mentor, my nemesis. I've got a story to tell you about. You know how I wished death upon him once before for the things that he did to me. I mean, he was constantly picking on me, you know.
Speaker 2:With love though.
Speaker 3:Well, no, not at that time he was was constantly picking on me, you know, with with love, though, well, no, not at that time he was. If I'm any part of the french, yeah, he was a hard-ass boss, was made a salty sailor, I mean just uh. But, like I said, he was my mentor, he was my nemesis, uh, and I I owe it to him and I'm, as a tribute to him, I've dedicated the book and his honor and his name, and to the honor and memory of the 50 swift boat sailors who lost their lives while serving on swift boats.
Speaker 2:So that's, that's what the story is about you know, if I'm being 100 honest with you, um, raul, I didn't. I didn't know how big of an impact the Swift boat was during Vietnam. It's something that was never brought to the attention as far as media. When you think of Vietnam, you mainly think of an army.
Speaker 3:The ground forces, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's what I thought about until we met. And then I started to do more research and I was like golly. And then I started to do more research and I was like golly, you know, you filled it in for me. Now, it's just so with writing the book. How long did it take you to write this? I'm curious.
Speaker 3:Oh, you took me by surprise with that question. Well, I tell you, it took me to get it published. I started this journey more than 40 years ago, forty, forty years ago. My children, my son Anthony he was gosh, I guess maybe two, two and a half years old, and I had an older daughter, odessa, and then Angela. There was three of us that went on the trip. Later I had Michael and Eileen twins, but it took me that long. Like I said, when I came back from Greece, my mother gave me those letters that I had written.
Speaker 3:Right and I started doing all the research back then.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But a lot of personal matters in my life that forced me to put the book on the shelf, and I've always thought and I've always believed that when the man says it's time, it's time the granddaughter that I have, camila she says, grampy, it's God's plan and it is, it is. You just have to listen to when he you know the spirit, like they say. The spirit moved me Right and it finally came to pass and things fell in place. And thankfully Texas Tech University Press are the publishers of my book and of course you know they have the Vietnam Center there at Lubbock.
Speaker 2:Right, right right.
Speaker 3:And that's the second largest depository of memorabilia from Vietnam War.
Speaker 2:Is the other one in New Orleans.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I haven't heard about the one in New Orleans, but Texas Tech is the largest next to Washington. The archives, okay yeah, and by the way there's two for anyone who is interested there were 104 Mark I swift boats manufactured out of Louisiana. Seaward Seacraft were the manufacturers, and these boats were already on the water and they had. There was no cabin, it was just a pilot house and a flat after section, and they would use these boats to take crews and equipment to the oil rigs out of Louisiana. Oh, wow. So then the government ordered 104, what became 104 Mark I swift boats? Pcf number one is a static display at the Navy Yard in Washington DC, pcf 104, the last one found in Washington and it wound up being in Coronado. It's part of a three-boat static display.
Speaker 3:There were three operations naval operations. Task Force 115 was the swift boats. Task Force 116 were the game wardens. Those were the PBRs, the ones that were in the rivers. They had jacuzzi engines, no propellers, it was jacuzzi driven propulsion. And then Task Force 117 were the riverine force and they had monitors and they'd go and take troops along the canals and the rivers Vietnamese troops, army troops, whatever. So it was those three operations that took place in Vietnam.
Speaker 2:Well, in front of us we have a couple of things. I want to be sure to talk about them. Well, first we have the picture, and the picture is of Bobby, that's Bobby Don Carver. Bobby Don Carver.
Speaker 3:Both were made first class. Bobby Don Carver, which, by the way, I don't know, the picture shows him holding an AK rifle that was taken off of the trawler. That was taken off the trawler.
Speaker 2:The one that was captured.
Speaker 3:Yes, we captured the trawler on July, the 15th, 1967. Days later, on the 19th of july of 67, we were ordered to get in our dress uniforms and head to north, to danang, the largest harbor in north vietnam for an award ceremony.
Speaker 3:We wound up getting personally decorated and congratulated by premier nuguyen Cao Ky and Chief of State, the President of South Vietnam, nguyen Van Thu, and you'll see him. He's got a floral lei. Yeah, this is after the ceremony took place and that's why he's pictured there carrying that rifle taken off a trawler. Do you remember that day? Oh, yes, yes, as a matter of fact, for those interested, I've got a YouTube channel called Skunk Alpha and I've got numerous historical documents in there.
Speaker 3:Cbs News crew was there and I've researched and I've found and I received from CBS. They were there at that day, yes, and ABC was there. As I've researched and I've found and I received from CBS. They were there at that day, yes, abc was there as well. In this video that's on my YouTube channel, you'll see that the two gentlemen, key and Two, were being interviewed by CBS and then the ABC newsman puts his microphone up to listening and it says ABC, but the reporter was from CBS and it was awesome. It was really something real. The Stars and Stripes Pacific Stars and Stripes. The stars and stripes pacific stars and stripes ran a a full page section of of that event that took place, but that's that's where that was, that place.
Speaker 2:There we got, uh, the american flag up up in the front. What, what? What's the significance of that american flag right there?
Speaker 3:Well, this is the flag that our boat PCF-79, was flying the night that we captured Skunk Alpha.
Speaker 2:The actual flag.
Speaker 3:Yes, this is the flag right here, the one that was flying those colors, and you'll notice the tattered. Yeah, the flag is rather tattered but that's because of all the salt and battering that we had during the patrol periods that we were out at sea. But I was very proud to have that. Another sideline of a number of things that I brought back from Vietnam I don't know how, but the actual combat and it's in my book, a picture of it, the actual combat chart for our patrol area when we captured the trawler. That includes the Batangan Peninsula where we captured the vessel and also the location where Carver was killed. That combat chart wound up in my sea bag. I brought it with me.
Speaker 3:Another thing is I brought back we were given permission when the ship was brought from where we captured it, north to Chulai, our base, because I was stationed in Chulai, coastal Division 16. We were given permission to board the trawler and one of the artifacts I took off of it was this right here you can spot that quite well this is binoculars Zeiss binoculars that were taken off of the trawler. You'll see a huge hole right in here in this one. It may have been possibly at least a .50 caliber round.
Speaker 2:Hey, those are some heavy duties too. Wow, got him around. Those are some heavy duties too. Wow. If somebody was reading the book, what would you say? Do you have a favorite chapter? Is there something that you always say start off at this chapter if it wasn't the first. No, not really.
Speaker 3:I mean, I hadn't the foggiest idea. I wasn't born an author.
Speaker 2:Oh, right right right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I was forced into it and I learned along the way. I was fortunate to be able to develop the talent of writing with an Hispanic magazine out of Houston. It was called Nuestras Vidas. I wrote numerous articles for them and then I also have written articles about the swift boat, about the trawler incident, sea Classics magazine and a number of magazines that I've written for as well New York Times, as a matter of fact, I had an article published there with New York Times. As a matter of fact, I had an article published there with the New York Times about this incident. But it's been a long journey, a long, long journey.
Speaker 2:So tell us a little bit about the you said 40 years. Tell us a little bit about the process of writing the book.
Speaker 3:I will, but I recall what you asked about the previous question you mentioned.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Dead zone dead zone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 3:Okay, the journey I was fortunate enough to have I mentioned. Okay, back to the trawler capture.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:We were the last line of defense swift boats, because we were shallow draft right. The next line of defense from the beach out towards the ocean were Coast Guard cutters and then, further out from them, were the larger vessels, the destroyers, okay, and the minesweepers. It happened that this particular trawler we knew that it was coming in Aerial surveillance aircraft spotted it on July, the the 11th, and it maintained contact aerial surveillance. And then the destroyer, the uss wilhoyt. They wound up catching up to the trawler. The trawler went dead in the water the following morning and that's how the title Skunk Alpha came about. In the Navy, an unidentified seaborne vessel is called a skunk.
Speaker 2:Is it an acronym? No, skunk.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, it's just a name given to an unidentified contact.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Unidentified, and the first one after midnight is Alpha, then followed by Bravo.
Speaker 2:Charlie.
Speaker 3:So Skunk Alpha, Skunk Charlie, Skunk Alpha.
Speaker 2:Out at sea.
Speaker 3:You got a bunch of skunks all over the place. They're identified. So that's how the title came about. But it turns out that on the way back there was a psychological chief for I-Corps. There were four corps sectors, war zone sectors in Vietnam I-Corps on the north, next one south, i-corps two and then three and then four down on the Mekong Delta area. The US Coast Guard, the Point Orient, was on the right-hand side of the trawler. As we were coming in, as we followed it coming in, we were on the left side, the port side, on the board the Coast Guard cutter. They had loudspeakers and during the middle of the night, because the trawler came in in the darkness of the moon right, it approached the Batangan Peninsula. As it approached midnight and before that it went within five miles from the coast, the Coast Guard cutter came close enough to the trawler. The trawler had no radar, no radar, so they couldn't tell who was out there, right?
Speaker 3:They thought the coast was clear. The Coast Guard cutter came close enough. With their loudspeakers they blasted a give up your arms message that was recorded by the psychological team in Vietnamese, in Vietnamese, and they ignored it. Well, the gentleman, the officer, the US Navy officer who had headed up that psychological team on the Coast Guard cutter, once the action started he rewound the tape and started recording the communications. So the details that I put in the book of the actual engagement is based on actual radio communications of that event.
Speaker 2:You also put that in the book trailer, correct on your YouTube.
Speaker 3:Well, yes, there's a small. My son, michael, stripped part of the full book trailer that I have out there on my YouTube channel. Again, the YouTube channel is called Skunk Alpha, but there's a three-and-a-half-minute full book trailer extensive, lengthy but my son captured part of it and he also used the audio from that audio tape that I have of the actual combat engagement. This took place over 50 years ago and I still have that actual audio, combat audio. Not too many people have things like that and so he used it and he has a penned video, if you will, of that particular book trailer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the book trailer that you have on YouTube is quite powerful. So was it yours or your son's idea to no, his? He surprised me, michael surprised me. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:He didn't tell me he was doing it, he just wanted to learn more. He found out that I had an audio and he said send it to me Dad. So I sent it to him and he said this is a good idea. He's good at doing that. He helped me a lot with my book event flyers as well.
Speaker 2:So, with all that, I forgot where I was going. I apologize. So was it important to you to use? I see that you used a lot of the historic footage not footage as far as, but the actual articles and things that you have you incorporated. It Was that important to you in bringing the story to life.
Speaker 3:What's in the book you?
Speaker 2:mean Right, yes, or in the videos, both actually.
Speaker 3:Well, in the book, obviously, yes, I wanted to be as accurate as I could in describing it. Not only do I go into detail about the capture of this enemy ship, skunk Alpha, but I also found it very important for me to tell the overall Swift Boat story. The overall Swift Boat story because there were numerous trawler incidents that took place even before we got to Vietnam.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And some of them before the swift boats got there. The Coast Guard cutters were involved in the capture and the sinking of these enemy ships. So I wanted to highlight those accomplishments seaborne units, coast Guard and Navy accomplishments and that's in the book. That's in the book as well.
Speaker 2:So do you think how is telling your story and writing this book? Well, you spoke on it a little bit earlier. It's impacted your life as far as a positive thing. It's impacted your life as far as a positive thing, so you mentioned that it was kind of like on a therapeutic side of it. Did you have to seek anyone's permission? No, no, no, okay, I was just curious.
Speaker 3:I didn't know. It's all fact. I don't know that anyone's going to come back and tell me what you wrote is incorrect. Right, right right right, because I've got the data to support it. Right. I've got the documentation to support all of what's in the book.
Speaker 2:So so far reading, how is the overall? I guess what? What's the overall people who have read the book? What kind of reviews, what kind of feedback are you getting back?
Speaker 3:all positive, all positive. Uh, you know things like gosh, I didn't know you guys did that much or you were involved in Vietnam. Some ladies actually come and buy the book because their nephew or their son was in the Navy. And you know, a lot of times people come and buy the book as a gift to their grandparents Because nowadays, you know the grandchildren are, you know, already up and married as well.
Speaker 3:And hey, grandpa was in the Navy and maybe he liked this, so you know. One interesting thing visiting with VFWs or American Legion posts. I always start off with how many of you honestly know what SWIFT posts were about in Vietnam. Even military types, even vets that served in Vietnam, didn't know about swift boats or Navy. Like you mentioned earlier, it's the ground forces. All credit given to the ground troops and their efforts and accomplishments. Ground troops and their efforts and accomplishments, you know it's time to bring news about.
Speaker 2:Hey, navy was there as well. If there was one thing you wanted your readers to take away from the book, what would it be?
Speaker 3:Basically sharing that swift boats service right Service to your country, a patriotic duty, and I didn't even consider going to Canada or anything like that. It's it's. It just was what's within the each individual and for me, I again I served, I joined the Navy to get a further education. I wanted to be a draftsman.
Speaker 2:But yet when I was called, I answered. That's awesome. With you being a published author, have you been able to connect with people that have experience, or any of your old Swift Boat members?
Speaker 3:Experience in what Were you able to just communicate. I'm a former president of the Swift Boat Sailors Association. That was again perhaps. Maybe that caused further delays in advancing the book as well. Right, right I was heavy into it for a number of years, and so Swift Boat membership is sadly dwindling. It's sad to see messages come across almost on a weekly basis now that this so-and-so has gone on his final patrol.
Speaker 3:As a matter of fact, we've got only two more reunions that are scheduled for our organization because our numbers are dwindling, difficulty with our medical conditions and many of our swift boat sailors are in their mid-80s the officers in particular, you know, and so it makes it difficult for them to plan reunions or go to reunions, Right? So we've got one more reunion scheduled somewhere towards the East Coast not necessarily on the East Coast and then the last one will be back in San Diego, where it all began.
Speaker 3:Wow, I was fortunate to. I was the president of the association at the time when the dedication of the Vietnam Unit Memorial in Coronado was established. I may have mentioned that In Coronado there is a three-boat display static display and also a memorial wall that has the names of all Navy and Coast Guard personnel that died in the Vietnam War. It's a tribute to them, so I'm very proud to have been able to be a part of that.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So what's next for your media tour? What do you have coming up?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I'm of the viewpoint that the book stays alive, as long as I stay alive.
Speaker 2:Right, hopefully, after this one.
Speaker 3:As a matter of fact, I just recently last week I mailed a book to a news anchor in San Antonio at KSAT-TV, and so hopefully I'll hear back from him. I'm doing my best to try and reach out. I'd love to be able to. I have this grand idea of hopefully. My goal is to share the Swift Boat story. A lot of people say, yeah, yeah, he's just trying to sell his book. Well, okay, that's the Swift Boat story. I'll never be able to recover financially from all that I've put into this effort.
Speaker 2:I understand.
Speaker 3:Never it's been a. It came from the heart, not from my pocket. It's been a. It came from the heart, not from my pocket. That's what it's for. And now what happened? What I'd like to do is A couple of years ago I saw on a news report of the NASCAR 600, I believe it's called the NASCAR 600 race.
Speaker 3:It's always held on Memorial Day and it brought a tear to my eye because the premise of this one news report was this guy was taking an older gentleman and a teenage boy or a young adolescent giving a tour of the garages for the race cars and they came and stopped upon one of the race cars but it was covered. It had a cover over it and the reporter was explaining that the purpose behind the NASCAR 600, 600 miles of remembrance or something along that line, is what the event is called. Well, they took the cover off of the vehicle and in front of the driver, at the bottom, on the windshield, it had that older gentleman's loved one etched in the glass. Oh, wow. And I said Bobby Don Carver. Yeah, you know. So I'm trying to see if I can reach out to somebody that can perhaps consider maybe it's way too late for for this year, but maybe for next year's race. Try to reach out to someone that has connections with nascar.
Speaker 3:600 miles of remembrance and, and and pitch the idea to them to reflect on his contribution and the Swiftfold contribution at large. So perhaps it. I know the book is sold outside of the United States. Oh yeah, oh yes, I was surprised. I've been contacted by some people that have purchased the book, navy-related individuals that got wind of it somehow and enjoyed the read. So it's out there but it could go further than beyond Houston and Paralympics and Texas and beyond that's where my hopes are.
Speaker 2:So what's next for you? What do you got coming up?
Speaker 3:Well, this weekend I'll be in Rockport Fulton Book Festival. I'll have a table there offering my book as well, and I'm scheduled in June to do a book signing in Austin as well Lone Star Festival. It's a book signing in Austin as well.
Speaker 1:Lone Star Festival it's a book festival there's an indoor festival as well, so I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 3:But any opportunity. I have a PowerPoint presentation to offer veteran organizations or any civic organization that's interested in learning a little bit about swift boats. It runs about maybe 30 minutes and I have a slide presentation with that, that PowerPoint presentation.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I'd be happy to hear from anybody, yeah, so how would people reach out to you if they wanted to?
Speaker 3:I can be reached at Raul at skunkalphacom, raul at skunkalphacom, raul at skunkalphacom, and that's A-L-P-H-A.
Speaker 2:Now, if people are interested in finding your book, how are they able to purchase it?
Speaker 3:I've got. If you go to my website again, if you would just Google skunkalpha by itself, just skunkalpha by itself you'll get about three or four or five pages of links related to my book. But one of those links will take you to my website, which is skunkalphacom, and in that landing page you'll find a QR code or a Buy Now button and I can sign the book and ship it to you as well.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, Raul. I really appreciate everything that you've done to bring the Swift Boat story to life. And do you have anything that you would like to say before we close out?
Speaker 3:No, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to take the Super Bowl story far and beyond.
Speaker 2:Well, Raul, one thing I do want to say is thank you for your service, sir Proud to have served, Thank you for everything you've done. Likewise Welcome home. Likewise brother.
Speaker 3:Yeah, likewise Thank you as always.
Speaker 2:You guys, thank you for tuning in to an episode of Charlie Mike the podcast. Remember, if you're in a crisis or you need help, please dial 988. You can also text 988. If you call 988, press 1. If you're a veteran, you know we love you, we want to see you. If you're in a fight, you know, please reach out for help. As always, thank you for tuning in. And Charlie Mike, that's it. Man, how do you think you did a great job?
