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Navy Vietnam Vet Raul Herrera, author of Capturing Skunk Alpha
Episode 2792 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature an interview with Navy Vietnam Vet Raul Herrera and his book Capturing Skunk Alpha.
CAPTURING SKUNK ALPHA is a first-person narrative nonfiction work that spins a unique yarn of an impressionable twenty-year-old Mexican-American sailor from San Antonio, Texas. The story chronicles this young man’s journey that takes him from the safety of high school life and young love to perilous combat action on the high seas, at the height of the Vietnam War.
Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Herrera shares a glimpse of barrio life in the mid-1960s. He escapes from a dysfunctional home life, volunteering to a four-year hitch in the U.S. Navy. Thirteen months into a two-year shore duty assignment in San Diego, a Navy recruiter’s promise of a drafting career turns into a questionable future when he receives orders to PCF Crew Training at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, California—he’s Vietnam War bound.
Operation Market Time strikes a devastating blow on North Vietnam’s seaborne resupply mission. A quarter past midnight on July 15, 1967, the six-man crew of Swift Boat PCF-79 led a vicious attack on a 120-foot ammo-laden trawler as it approached the Sa Ky river mouth on the Batangan Peninsula in Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam. The Viet Cong were deprived of more than 90 tons of ammunition and supplies. For their gallant action against a Communist infiltrator, the crew was personally congratulated and decorated by Premier Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and Chief of State Nguyễn Văn Thiệu.
Herrera’s prose highlights the essence of small boat combatants at the height of the Vietnam War. He masterfully invokes creative license, giving voice to the characters as he traces the real Swift Boat story in this historic military memoir.
Listen to episode 2792 and discover more about Navy Vietnam Vet Raul Herrera and his book Capturing Skunk Alpha.
