This was the first issue of Our Life Together. We had a church newsletter before this, but it was only for members of First Baptist Church Chula Vista. The first thing to catch my eye was that I had just returned from a tour of duty in the Western Pacific (a WestPac Cruise). Later in the issue it states that I have returned from North Viet Nam. If you know your history, this is a little strange. All of the fighting during the Viet Nam War was in South Viet Nam. We were protecting the government and people of the Republic of Viet Nam (South Viet Nam) from an insurgency powered by North Viet Nam (if you aren't aware, North Viet Nam won). Well, what was I doing in North Viet Nam?

This was 1973 and the US was really trying to disengage from the war. There was a lot of division here in the states and there was a general feeling that we need to get out. One of the problems was that North Viet Nam was holding a number of Prisoners of War (including John McCain). We wanted them to come home. One of the things that North Viet Nam wanted was for their harbor of Haiphong to be cleared of the mines that we had sown over the last few years. I was the logistics officer for the admiral in charge of the surface warfare ships in this operation; Endsweep.

I wont tell a lot of war stories, but I will say that this was a very trying operation. We were clearing their harbor, but they continually shot at our helos. We were there at their behest (they even had observers aboard some of our ships), yet they would make unannounced torpedo runs on our ships -- trying to provoke us. The mission was successful and we saved a Presidential Candidate. At some time I'll tell more. For the purposes of this post, I just wanted to say that this first issue of OLT brought back a lot of memories to me.