Muddy Jungle Rivers

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Muddy Jungle Rivers, a river assault boat Cox?n?s memory journey of his war in Vietnam and return home, gives the reader a close-up look at life in the Mobile Riverine Force during 1968, the bloodiest year of the Vietnam War. Operational doctrine for the joint Army/Navy unit had been resurrected from Civil War archives to battle the communist insurrection in the Mekong Delta.
Told from a twenty-year-old sailor?s point of view, this memoir takes the reader into the frustration, rage, terror, death, betrayal, and search for redemption. Images come alive as the story unfolds about a seven-man crew captained by a volatile pro-war enlisted man. Forty years later, Affield writes, ?The memories of those muggy days are never far away. When I hear a gunshot, pass over a river, smell diesel fuel or exhaust, decomposing flesh, or a thousand other triggers, I am back on the river. And I hear voices of those we lost.?
The 1968 Tet Offensive had raged across South Vietnam for eight days when the Brown Water Navy replacement crewmen reached their new duty station in the Mekong Delta where they relieved the crew of armor troop carrier 112-11. Referred to as Tango boats, the boats were retrofitted LCM-6 landing craft that had been used during WWII amphibious assaults.
The Cua Viet River, five miles south of the DMZ, was a vital supply link to the on-going battle at Khe Sanh. On March 3, 1968, General William Westmoreland ordered one Task Force 117 river assault division to I Corps to augment Task Force Clearwater in their efforts to maintain control of the Cua Viet River. On March 14, Tango 7 was mined. Six of the seven man crew was KIA.
Affield?s description of the memorial service is poignant. ?Ten days later, sand swirled around the small congregation as we gathered near the mouth of the Cua Viet River to bid farewell to the Tango 7 crew. The military chaplain told us how important our mission was ? that these men hadn?t died in vain. As we listened to the memorial that day I looked out over the sand dunes, out to the South China Sea, past the homebound fishermen in their low-riding sampans, past the warship silhouette, beyond the horizon and remembered how it was when I was little and terrified of burning in hell. The military chaplain finished and we recited the Apostles? Creed. This wasn?t for the dead anymore; it was for us. Then we recited the Lord?s Prayer. I was comfortable with that because it was a plea for mercy.?
Tango 11 and the other Mobile Riverine Force boats operated with the U.S. 3rd Marine Division. They patrolled the Cua Viet River from the South China Sea coast, inland to Dong Ha. Tango 11 swept for mines, endured snipers, groundings, friendly fire, artillery bombardments, and battled among themselves.
July 1968 the boats returned to the Mekong Delta at the height of the southwest monsoon season. On August 18 Tango 11 was in the heart of an ambush on the Hai Muoi Tam Canal. With US Army 3rd Platoon, Co D, 4/47th Infantry Battalion, 9th Infantry Division, in the well-deck, Tango 11 took seven rocket hits and countless rounds of machine gun fire. 3rd platoon was incapacitated. Affield and several other brown water sailors were wounded when rockets burned through the armor shields. With no goodbye to his crewmates, Affield was choppered out of the jungle and medevaced home where he was greeted by antiwar protestors when his plane landed at Glenview Naval Air Station in Illinois.
In 1991 Affield reconnected with his boat captain who suffered severe post traumatic stress disorder . Late-night phone calls and visits reawakened Affield?s Vietnam memories. After his former boat captain died in 1999 Affield felt compelled to tell their story.
Today, Affield attends Bemidji State University where he is studying psychology.