A PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS

When I started That’s Another Fine Mess, I said that paid subscribers would soon get special treatment in the form of posts available only to those supporting this site financially.

I’m now announcing the first of those.

Beginning on Wednesday, July 28, through Friday, August 6, I will be excerpting the first chapter of my coming book (out on October 11), “The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club.” This will cover all aspects of the “Tonkin Gulf Incident” that happened 57 years ago and took us into active participation in the Vietnam War. It’s one of the most important events in U.S. history of the past 100 years.

I divide my life Before Tonkin Gulf and After. My life turned 180 degrees when I learned in September 1964 from the lips of a good friend the truth what exactly had happened on August 4, 1964, in the Tonkin Gulf. At the time, I was a member of the enlisted staff of Commander Patrol Forces 7th Fleet, the operational commander of the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy in that engagement, and my friend’s tale was first-hand, as he had experienced it in the fire control tower of the Maddox that night.

The truth was, there had been no attack, there were no North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the vicinity, and the greatest threat to either of the two destroyers was the other one accidentally opening fire on them, which very nearly happened.

I thought when I began researching this chapter of the book that I knew all about it from all the research and reading I had done over the years. Hah! With the 50 Year Rule now leading to the declassification of previously highly-classified government reports, it turns out I wasn’t as well-informed as I thought. The result was the chapter name: “Shooting at Flying Fish.”

Over the course of reading what I am going to post here, you will learn why that title is so appropriate. Hopefully, these posts will generate comment and start That’s Another Fine Mess into becoming the platform I want it to be: a community of conversation about events that bear on our daily lives. It may be 57 years ago that the Tonkin Gulf Incident happened, but its effect still influences events today.

This will culminate on August 6 with me doing an hour-long interview about all this on Rag Radio in Austin with my old friend Thorne Dreyer. I’ll post information on how you can listen in.

Only paid subscribers will be able to read these posts and comment. Subscriptions here are monthly, so trying it out is not a major commitment. I look forward to your participation.

Here’s some U.S.-Vietnamese history I didn’t know when I started the book, and I’ll bet you don’t know it either - it’s an example of what you’ll get:

American Marines first arrived in Vietnam on May 10, 1845 - 120 years before they landed on Da Nang’s White Beach in March 1965 - when Captain John “Mad Jack” Percival, commanding officer of USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides,” then on a Far Eastern show-the-flag tour, dropped anchor in Da Nang harbor and landed a detachment of the ship’s Marines in the closest port to Hue, the Vietnamese imperial capital. “Mad Jack” was responding to information he had received that the Vietnamese were about to execute French bishop Dominic Lefebvre, the Catholic religious leader in Viet-Nam, as part of an ongoing persecution of native Catholics carried out by order of Emperor Trinh, son of Emperor Gia Long who had considered Christianity subversive to the nation he was building in the years before his death in 1832.

The Marines quickly took several local Vietnamese officials - who had never heard of the United States of America - captive and held them as hostages for four days until Emperor Trinh gave assurances that the bishop would not be harmed. Satisfied, “Mad Jack” sailed away and matters remained quiet until the government in Washington finally heard of the event and sent the American Consul at Singapore to apologize to the Emperor for the audacious behavior in 1849. Similar to events 120 years later, “Mad Jack” Percival and his Marines had never heard of Vietnam until two weeks before they landed.