Wendell Affield - Muddy Jungle Rivers

Mobile Riverine Force, Vietnam

When I began taking writing classes atBemidji State University I was astonished at the interest youngstudents expressed about the Vietnam War. But a universal criticismI encountered was my use of military jargon, technical terms, andacronyms. In the desire to reach a young audience and hold theirattention, I decided to use an informal, more personal approach tomy story.

I ask forbearance from the army troops andnavy men who served on the boats.

Below are three excellent resources to studyarmy and navy unit composition, technical data, and weaponssystems. The reader can further explore the Mobile Riverine Forceand the areas of operations that are discussed in Muddy JungleRivers:

IV Corps in the Mekong DeltaMobile RiverineForce Association: http://www.mrfa.org/

I Corps, Marine Base Camp Kistler, the CuaViet River, and Cua Viet Naval Base at the river mouth:http://www.pcf45.com/cuaviet/cuaviet.html

The Navy Department Libraryexplore differenthistory links:linkshttp://www.history.navy.mil/library/guides/riverine_bib.htm

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A River Assault Boat Coxns

Memory Journey of His War in Vietnam andReturn Home

Wendell Affield

Hawthorn Petal Press, LLC

Bemidji, Minnesota

Copyright 2012 Wendell Affield

All rights reserved. No material in this bookmay be copied or reproduced in any form or by any electronic ormechanical means, including information-storage-and-retrievalsystems, without the express written consent of the publisher,except for brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

Published in the United States by HawthornPetal Press, LLC.

Smashwords Edition

Library of Congress Control Number2011944316

Affield, Wendell

Muddy Jungle Rivers: a river assault boatcoxns memory journey of his war in Vietnam and return home /Wendell Affield.

Although the author and publisher have madeevery effort to ensure the accuracy of information contained inthis book, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies,omissions, or inconsistency thereof. Any slights of people, places,or organizations are unintentional. Dialogue is reconstructed anddramatized.

ISBN 978-0-9847023-0-5

eBook ISBN 978-0-9847023-1-2

EPub ISBN 978-0-9847023-2-9

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For

Boat Captain Buddha Edward W. ThomasIII

He relived it every night.

And the rest of the crewwherever you maybe.

I met Wendell Affield at a writing workshopin Northern Minnesota. Workshops can be strange settings, for thesimple reason that a group of strangers must come together todiscuss highly personal work. Wendells piece was especiallycharged.

It was an excerpt from a memoir that dealtwith his return from Vietnam, where he had served on a gunboat inthe Mekong Delta. The piece was striking for its unflinchinghonesty. He was able to capture the sense of desolation experiencedby the veterans of that war with restrained dignity.

But there was one passage that stood out.Wendell recounted an incident in which a number of anti-warprotesters stormed a bus transporting him and other woundedveterans, eager to inflict further injury. He described thesoldiers within as terrified.

I asked Wendell whether his perception of theevents of that day might not be skewed by his intense emotions.Would anti-war protesters really behave in such a vicious manner?Why would they attack wounded soldiers in broad daylight?

Wendell was quietly adamant. Hed been there,and this is what had happened. As we talked, his face reddened withfrustration. He told me, quite correctly, that I was too young toremember how it had been back then for returning soldiers like him,and probably too ideologically blinded.

In the end, I issued a few unconvincingbromides about the risks of writing about events that remain soraw, and we moved on to another piece. But I felt terrible. As ateacher, the last thing I want to do is undermine a student,particular one like Wendell, who struck me as an exceptionallygentle soul, and was clearly engaged in a painful personalexcavation.

A few months later, rather out of the blue, Ireceived a note from Wendell, along with an article hed writtenabout the confrontation with the anti-war protesters. Wendell hadreturned to the scene of the episode, talked with some of thelocals, and done considerable archival research in an effort toreconstruct what had happened. What he discovered wasastonishing.

As it turned out, the anti-war protestersapparently had confused the bus Wendell was on with one that wastransporting members of the National Guard to Chicago, where thebloody riots of the 1968 Democratic National Convention were infull swing. This explained the belligerence of the protesters:theyd thought they were confronting soldiers who were about todescend on their comrades.

I mention all this by way of suggesting thedeep respect I have for Wendell, and especially his determinationto tell his story accurately. After all, it would have been easyenough for him to dismiss my questions as nave and presumptuous.Instead, he did what every serious writer must: he investigatedfurther, in pursuit of the truth. This, it seems to me, is thehighest duty of any memoirist in this age of fraudulence andsolipsism.

I could speak at length here about the meritsof Muddy Jungle Rivers: its eloquence, its emotionalgenerosity, its urgent and haunting prose. But the books enduringvirtue is that it records, with utmost fidelity, the unspeakablehorrors of the author himself, as a young man adrift in the moralchaos of war.

No story is more important to this historicalmoment, in this country, which has been at war for over a decadenow. Whatever rhetoric politicians might use to glorify thesemilitary adventures, they boil down to the same story, which playsout all over our country: young men, most of them without manyother economic options, are sent far from home, to countriestheyve never heard of, to fight an enemy they barely know. Theymove through utterly foreign landscapes as human targets. Theyendure both tedium and occasional bursts of violent chaos. Whenthey can no longer resist the impulse, they struggle to understandthe greater purpose of the risks and burdens they shoulder. And atthe end of all this, the fortunate must return home and seek tomake peace with what theyve seen and done and suffered.

This is the story Wendell has set out totell. It might be said that it is the essential story of ourcountry. At the very least, it is our saddest.

As you venture into the world Wendell drawsso vividly, let me offer one final observation that the purestmeasure of our decency as a nation resides not just in ourwillingness to provide these men medical and psychological care,but to listen when, like Wendell, they muster the uncommon courageto tell us what happened to them.

-- Steve Almond

Autumns rain echoes overhead

as I rock my granddaughter tonight