Anyone who has read a Vietnam War memoir written by a draftee will discover a lot of familiar material in Ever Vigilant: Tales of the Vietnam War (CreateSpace, 322 pp. $19.95, paper: $5.99, Kindle) by Michael J. Hebert. But writing about what it was like to leave home as a teenager, endure ego-shattering training, arrive in a war zone, fear death, and engage in combat is forgivable because going through all those life-changing events invokes similar dramatic psychological reactions in most men.
Hebert, a life member of Vietnam Veterans of America, tells tales about all of the above and does so in an easily readable style filled with free-flowing memories and humor. Plus, he worked a job well outside the ordinary. Determined to avoid an infantry assignment, teenage draftee Hebert signed up for a third year of duty to get his choice of advanced training. Then, when all of the schools he wanted had no openings, he ended up as a watercraft operator trainee.
Arriving in-country in 1969, Hebert joined the 458th Transportation Company attached to the 18th Military Police Brigade of the 92nd MP Battalion and became the coxswain of the River Patrol Boat Magic Christian. That was a job that his water operator school did not prepare him for, and Hebert had to learn how to drive the boat on-the-job in combat.
After he did, his war experience took on a deeper dimension. Stationed at Vung Ro Bay, his unit had two RPBs that protected cargo ships unloading “bombs, napalm, bullets, weapons, fuel, and just about all the other tools of war” for transportation on tractor-trailer trucks or through pipelines to Tuy Hoa AFB and Phu Hiep Army camp.
Viet Cong sappers with underwater explosives were the main threat against the ships. Other VC forces attacked the base “frequently but not fervently with machine-gun fire, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades, most of the time on Friday nights,” Hebert says.
The 458th didn’t have any officers when Hebert was there. Most of the men were E-4s serving under an NCOIC; a warrant officer commanded the base.
“Young soldier are, by the very nature of their youth, relatively stupid and naïve,” Hebert says. “This was the case when the U.S. Army placed four 18- and 19-year-olds on a high-speed boat outfitted with three .50-caliber machine guns, a Honeywell grenade launcher that fires 250 grenades a minute, an M-79 grenade launcher, four M-16 rifles, a 12-gauge shotgun, four .45-caliber pistols, and a bottomless supply of ammunition.”
Not to mention that the boat “skipped across the water at speeds in excess of 30 knots.”
Hebert quickly began to love firing weapons. “There is nothing—absolutely nothing—like the raucous thunder of a .50-caliber machine gun,” he says. On the other hand, he suffered breathlessness, a pounding heart, and an uncontrollable, twitching left leg as part of his initial combat action.
At sea, the RPBs interdicted targets with maximum force. “The youthful crews enjoyed making things explode,” Hebert says.
Ever Vigilant has a good number of combat scenes, but much of the book describes the off-duty diversions of Hebert and his buddies, a tightly-knit group.
“When there were no ships in port and if the Viet Cong weren’t attacking, there wasn’t very much for us to do,” Hebert says. So the men devised their own off-duty activities. Their all-in-good-fun behavior reminded me of college fraternity brothers. In a climax to Hebert’s year in Vietnam, treacherous weather challenged him as much as the VC did.
Readers should find it easy to identify with Hebert’s philosophy of service. Perhaps his point of view came from his father, “a career NCO who fought in the Pacific during World War II, then in Korea, and two tours of Vietnam.”
In the Vietnam War Mike Hebert more than lived up to his heritage.
Hebert’s website is michaelhebert-author.com
—Henry Zeybel
Books in Review II 