We specialize in hard to find items
All Categories
Muddy Jungle Rivers: A river assault boat cox'n's memory journey of his war in Vietnam
Share Tweet
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About Muddy Jungle Rivers: A River Assault Boat Cox'n's
Product Description Muddy Jungle Rivers is a close-up look at life on a gunboat during 1968, the bloodiest year of the Vietnam War. It’s the story of a seven-man crew captained by a volatile pro-war enlisted man. Like Philip Caputo’s "A Rumor Of War," this narrative takes the reader into frustration, rage, terror, death, betrayal, and the search for redemption. Muddy Jungle Rivers has 29 chapters, maps, and photographs. Today’s generation watch their peers returning from combat and cannot understand why their loved ones have changed after being blanched in the cauldron of war. In Muddy Jungle Rivers the reader will glimpse the genesis of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Steve Almond wrote the Foreword for Muddy Jungle Rivers. Review Received the excellent book. You have Buddha down pat. Jimmy Austin GMG1 Ret was a great guy. He became sick with Agent Orange which finally took his life as it has so many of our members. I started reading yesterday afternoon and finished at 4am this morning; could not put it down. Albert Moore, President, Mobile Riverine Force, Vietnam Affield tells the story of his Vietnam War tour of duty deftly and readably in his memoir. Affield's tour ended in August when he was wounded when his gunboat was ambushed while on patrol on the Hai Muoi Tam Canal. Marc Leepson, VVA Arts Editor From the Author Ambush Survivors Reunited 45 Years Later: Memories from August 18, 1968 Reunions can be poignant, frightening, illuminating. I recently attended the 2013 Mobile Riverine Force Association Reunion, held in Indianapolis. I was saddened to see how age and Agent Orange illnesses have ravaged our ranks. But there were moments of disbelief, too. About a year ago, Larry Reid, an army veteran who had been riding our boat when we were ambushed on August 18, 1968, discovered "Muddy jungle Rivers" on Amazon and purchased it. Over the past twelve months we've been in touch. On the first day of the reunion he introduced himself. We compared notes on how our lives have evolved over the past four decades. The second day of the reunion Larry came up to me and said, "I found three guys who were in the well deck on August 18." It was an intense experience. Larry McCormick looked at me, frowned, and shook his head. "I thought you were dead these past forty-five years." "Why would you think that?" I said "Because of all the blood dripping down from your cox'n flat above me. And the boat kept running into things." "Each time rockets hit my armor plating I kept getting knocked down," I told him. He asked an unusual question then--one I've never thought about. "How many times were you hit?" I have always considered the ambush one action--not multiple injuries. I thought back for a time and told him, "Four, I suppose." We all visited then and recalled that hot Sunday afternoon and I thought again how each of us remembered differently yet there were some memories held by all. The most powerful: blood splattered everywhere. Blood trickling across the welldeck deck. Heroism of already wounded men, cradling smoldering crates as they struggled across the slick deck to throw grenades and ammo overboard before it exploded. I brought up the black army sergeant who had come up to man our abandoned .50 caliber machine gun. I told again how he had been severely maimed when a B-40 rocket burned through the armor and he took a direct hit. Cleve recalled that he was a career man who had recently joined the platoon so most of the men didn't know him. "Thomas," Cleve said. "His last name was Thomas." Larry Reid gave me a list of twenty-three army men who were on ATC 112-11 who received a Purple Heart for wounds received on August 18. Two names are missing: Hector Lugo-Mojica who was Killed in Action, and the black sergeant named Thomas. I wonder if Sergeant Thomas was the senior man on board ATC 112-11 on August 18. I believe in the chaos of the day his act of heroism went unnoticed and unrecorded. I would very much lik
