It was mid-july 1966 when I found myself on the edge of a typhoon 500 miles east of Okinawa, wondering just what in hell I had let myself in for. The swells were 40 to 50 feet, higher than my cabin aboard the USS Gaffney, a World War II-era troopship that was carrying my Army psychological warfare detachment to Vietnam. Unlike many of the thousand or so souls on board-including a battalion of the First Air Cavalry Division-I wasn't seasick, but I certainly felt the straining vibrations through every inch of steel on the ship as it crested each wave.
展开▼
