COAST GUARD ACTION IN VIETNAM Stories of Those Who Served

By Paul C. Scotti
236 pp., illus., ISBN 1555715281
Hellgate Press
Hellgate Press is to be commended for specializing in publishing histories of heretofore historical events which have received little attention. Coast Guard Action in Vietnam certainly meets this criteria.
Author Scotti served for thirty years in the military, the first four in the Air Force and remainder in the Coast Guard. He served as a gunner on one of th 82 foot patrol craft described in this work. The remainder of his career was spent public affairs, time which included the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the sinking of the buoy tender Blackthorn.
Some of the first chapters include a few examples of slang terms such as "measled" to describe bullet holes. The book seems to take a few chapters for Mr Scotti to reach his stride as writing a work of history and not a oral tale of the sea. One other annoying habit throughout the book was referring to high endurance cutters as HEC instead of the correct WHEC designation. At one point Scotti refers to seeing smoke on radar, which seems almost impossible from a technical perspective. However these are minor criticisms of what was obviously a great deal of work put into the final product.
However the strength of Scotti in writing this history is certainly derived from both his lengthy Coast Guard service and actually being a part of some of the events he describes. The photo caption on page 81 is correctly described as a mooring buoy, a fact that a lay person may not necessarily be able to identify.
The book not only includes information on the work of the cutters in preventing Communist arms & troop smuggling by sea, it also details port operations, LORAN activities, combat search and rescue and the eventual transfer of cutters and related equipment to South Vietnamese forces.
For those interested in the US Coast Guard and Vietnam, this book is recommended. (DS)