Da Nang, Vietnam was in the news today. The supercarrier USS Carl Vinson and some of her escorts were visiting the harbor, guests of the Vietnamese government. Vietnam and China have always been historical enemies, and the Vietnamese are now courting us as allies, hoping our presence in the area will serve as a counter to Chinese muscle-flexing in the S China Sea. Contrary to the Domino Theory of the 1960s, Vietnam has not occupied any of her neighbors, although she has fought, and won, a war with the PRC, and frustrated Chinese meddling in Cambodia and Laos. Makes you wonder why we spent so much blood and treasure there, eh? All for nothing. Its pretty safe to say now we were fighting on the wrong side all along.

I was in Da Nang Harbor 50 years ago. I never went ashore, my ship anchored in the harbor and the officers went on the beach for briefings. We spent an edgy night there, with big floodlights rigged around the ship while we marched around the decks carrying loaded M-1s (the Navy always gets the Army’s castaways!). We had been warned that Viet Cong swimmers might try to place mines on our hull, and we had orders to shoot or drop concussion grenades on anything moving in the water. I was more afraid of the mountains looming darkly across the bay, we must have stuck out plainly all lit up like that, and we were within easy mortar range of the beach.

An old college buddy of mine was stationed at the shore facility there, and we had corresponded on my way over from Norfolk. He came to visit me, on the launch that ferried supplies and personnel back and forth between Dewey and the beach. I was just a Seaman, and he was an Ensign, so I had to salute him when we met! That’s all I remember, I don’t even recall his name.

Only one other memory remains of my Da Nang visit. I remember a sea wall, or jetty, made of up big heaps of rip-rap, covered with spray-painted graffiti. GIs were swimming off of it.

I encountered Vinson on San Francisco Bay about 20 years later. She was anchored off Hunter’s point, probably waiting for a berth across the Bay at NAS Alameda, and I sailed my MacGregor alongside her to take a look. But when I got there, she was hosing off her anchor chain and getting underway, and suddenly I found myself playing tag with one of the biggest ships in the world–in a 22 foot sloop. She was so big I was having trouble finding enough wind to maneuver in her lee. I was forced to cut across her bows so close I could not see her bridge windows (which meant her captain couldn’t see me at all!).

But as they say, that’s another story…