in our A.O.

I settled into life on the aforementioned Princeton as best one could in a war zone. Besides the steady flow of casualties, the ship itself had adventures. We were very close to North Vietnamese waters, and usually in sight of Tiger Island, a heavily fortified North Vietnamese outpost just northeast of the DMZ. One day our Navy was bringing in two ships heavily laden with new troops south of us, so as a distraction, the Princeton headed straight toward the island. My sphincters were never tighter. I was probably cross-eyed by the time we veered off.

There were three other Navy ships of note in our Area of Operation. Two of them were hospital ships, the Sanctuary and the Repose. They were painted white and the Repose had big red crosses on her side. They served thousands of troops. The third ship was the legendary New Jersey. She got to our AO just before I rotated out, and I’ll never forget her awesome power. Her guns fired 16 inch (41 cm) shells and dealt massive damage on the enemy. We were nearby her one night watching her fire. When each shell ignited, it was like a split second of daylight. I was in country once when she shot a round over me. Although it likely had a long ways to go, when it went past it felt and sounded like I was under a railroad train.

The Princeton finished its military history by being the prime recovery ship for Apollo 10 in April, 1969. She was decommissioned in 1970 and sold for scrap in 1971 to Fermilab. Some of it is in the the huge sculpture Broken Symmetry, by the lab’s founder Robert R. Wilson, at the entrance the lab.