Free Vietnam II: A War Novel Episode 2 (V2) by C.R. Ryder Page A

caves.  Understand?”
    “Understood,”
    I didn’t, but much like surviving sexual assault by a marine mammal you just wanted to let Bella say his peace.  Bella wasn’t someone you understood.  Bella was someone you survived.  Asking too many questions would only feed the crazy.
    I found my mentor on the tip of the forecastle smoking a damp cigarette the morning we arrived in position in the Gulf of Tonkin.
    “We’re here.”  He said blowing smoke from his mouth.  The ship had turned into the wind.
    “We’re where?”
    “Yankee Station,”
    “Is that a real thing?”
    “Why wouldn’t it be?”
    It was a spot in the ocean like any other he explained.  Water as far as the eye could see.  Bella, Chief Barnes and Captain Bishop were the only ones who had been here before.  The rest of us couldn’t have pointed to it on a chart, but the GPS knew exactly where it was.
    Bella explained that Yankee Station was the point for carrier operations into Old North Vietnam.  We were about 190 km east of Vietnamese city of Dong Hoi, located at 17° 30' North and 108° 30' East.  The Missouri was part of an aircraft carrier battle group consisting of the USS John F. Kennedy, the USS Saratoga and the USS America along with various support ships.
    “There’s a Dixie Station too.  It’s to the south.  Our last surviving brother is down there with the Midway and the Ranger.”  Bella said referencing the Wisconsin, the only other battleship still on active duty.
    The Kennedy pulled into position with the Saratoga to the north and America further south. 
    The task force was in a position to enforce the embargo or commit strike operations if it came to that.  We didn’t really think it would. 
    Except Bella.
    “In another world we’d be off the coast of Kuwait or Korea right now.  But that’s not what’s real for us.  It’s like that Star Trek episode where Spock has the beard and the Enterprise is a pirate ship.  In some other world this isn’t even the Missouri.  We’re the Illinois or the Kentucky and its crewed by intelligent dogs or robots.  But not in this world.  In this world it’s us and this is what we’re up against.  Understand?”
    “Understood,” I said not understanding.
    “This Second Vietnam War, Vietnam Two if you like, will be the last hurrah for the battleship and for classical over the beach fire support.  It’s going to be all satellites, drones and missiles going into the Twenty First Century.  Big Mo and I are just going to be relics of the past.”
    He lit another cigarette and stared at the ocean.
    Vietnam was a hard country to threaten.  We already had a trade embargo against them and they were pretty poor to begin with.  It was difficult to take something away from someone who didn’t have anything to begin with.
    We watched the destroyers fan out.  Rumor was they were headed for the shipping lanes in and out of the Gulf of Tonkin. 
    Whatever we were doing here was about to begin.

Lieutenant Colonel Paul Adams
    State Department
    Washington D.C.
     
    “The United States Navy is mobilizing two battle groups, led by the USS John F. Kennedy and USS Midway, to the area.”
    “When do they arrive?”
    “They should be in position now.”
    I was impressed with operations thus far.  The “Vietnam Syndrome” turned out to quickly be nothing more than a myth.  America’s lack of combat since the end of the Vietnam War, which in recent days the press had been referring to as VW1, but often more commonly V1, was more due to a lack of a national threat rather than a lack of American will power.  There was a genuine fear that after the complete failure to save South Vietnam from communism, after over a decade of war, public opinion seemed allergic to the idea of using American power in other parts of the world. There was even a movement to retreat the country into isolation.
    Basically though we had fifteen years of peace and spent the time beating ourselves up over