Click to copy, then share by pasting into your messages, comments, social media posts and websites.
Click to copy, then add into your webpages so users can view and engage with this video from your site.
Report Content
We also accept reports via email. Please see the Guidelines Enforcement Process for instructions on how to make a request via email.
Thank you for submitting your report
We will investigate and take the appropriate action.
Cua Viet - Final Hour of the Time Episode - Nov.5 2001
https://beholdamessenger.com/cua-viet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_on_the_Fourth_of_July_(film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB4gJUjiYaA
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the final episode of the Hour of the Time, hosted by Bill Cooper.
The topic was Cua Viet, where Bill served in Vietnam. Below is part of the essay he wrote about it.
Task Force Clearwater, Cua Viet by William Cooper
The water is dark and muddy. The monsoon rains pour into the river making currents swift, treacherous and strong, grabbing all things, eating away the banks, uprooting plants and sweeping them into the South China Sea. Sand bars shift and change daily like mischievous children playing tag with the boats. Sharks feed near the mouth. Water snakes are seen everywhere.
The Cua Viet River provides food and transportation from dawn until dusk. It is strategic. It is a natural barrier and a vital conduit for supplies.
At the mouth, on the south bank, is a lonely bleak and sandy place. A group of colorless shanties placed at odd angles and apart from each other dot the land. The shacks are bound together by wooden pallets laid end to end forming walkways but leading nowhere. Sandbags are piled high around each hooch. The boundary to the north is the river and to the east is the sea. Concertina wire, tangle foot, and mine fields bound the south and west.
A concrete ramp slopes gently into the river. Men scurry, moving cargo between LSTs, YFUs and LCUs bound south for Da Nang or west to Dong Ha.
East of the ramp are some ammi barges. Alongside are moored landing craft wallowing up and down with the barges as the surf rolls into the river.
Farther west is a beached barge that shelters the PBRs of River Division 543. The sleek modern patrol boats bristle with weapons. The last pier is the home of 6 steel Mark 5 LCPLs, 1 fiberglass Mark 12 LCPL, and a wooden 45-ft. Picket boat belonging to the Dong-Ha River Security Group. The Mark 5s are very old and beat up. They are dented and patched veterans of 3 wars. The Mark 12 is new. The Picket boat looks neglected and tired.
Inside the perimeter only a few feet west of the head of the pier, about 10 yards from the water, stands a 50-ft. observation tower. The sentry stares through a binocular 10 miles to the north at another tower where a North Vietnamese sentry stares back.
The lapping water, the groan of mooring lines, the crashing surf, the haunting whisper of the cold sea breeze are the only sounds. Dark lowering clouds place a weight upon the scene. The light is sickly and pale. What is not mildewed or rusted glistens in the never ending rain.
A sandbag hill nearest the PBRs is a small clinic. Three Navy Corpsmen treat the sick or wounded. To the south in a half buried Quonset hut covered with sandbags is Stingray Control command post from which radio antennas reach up striving to touch the clouds.
East and three huts down is a black sign with a flying bat outlined against a full orange moon nailed to the door of a hooch. Underneath the moon are the words, Dong-Ha River Security Group Night Fighters. A little farther east, on the opposite side is a sign announcing Headquarters River Division 543.
Cua Viet is the name most often used to describe the Naval Support Activity Detachment immediately adjacent on the western border of the US Marine Amtrac base called Camp Kistler. It is 3 1/2 miles south of the southern boundary of the DMZ. The mission of the Amtracs and patrol boats is to deny enemy access to the river and protect the flow of supplies to Dong-Ha.
On the north bank is a Marine rest and recuperation (R&R) camp. Tents mark the position in a corner formed by the sea to the east and the river to the south. West is a small fishing village called My-Loc. The village is protected by Popular Forces. The PF are poorly trained civilian militia.
Half a mile west is the rubble of a city of old French colonial buildings. From the ruins rise columns attesting the architecture of a forgotten time. No one knows when it was built, no one knows when it was destroyed, and no one cares. The history has been lost in the misery and turmoil of over 50 years of war.
Directly across the river is an old colonial home on the branch of a south loop that goes around an island in the river. This is the headquarters of a detachment of Coastal Group 11. The force consists of American naval advisors, men of the South Vietnamese Navy, and seven junks with eyes painted on the bows. Most of the sailors have tattooed the words Sat Cong across their chests. It means, kill communists. These men patrol the seacoast from the DMZ south.
A creek runs north a mile west on the opposite bank. It is so small that it doesnt appear on maps. The mouth is strung with row after row of concertina wire denying access to or from the river. It is called Whiskey Two.
Category | Education |
Sensitivity | Normal - Content that is suitable for ages 16 and over |
Playing Next
Related Videos
Lawrence Dennis Interview 1967 - Part 2
6 months ago
Lawrence Dennis Interview 1967 - Part 1
6 months, 3 weeks ago
Biography: Dostoyevsky - with Malcolm Muggeridge
10 months ago
King Of Bluegrass - The Life & Times Of Jimmy Martin
10 months, 1 week ago
Warning - This video exceeds your sensitivity preference!
To dismiss this warning and continue to watch the video please click on the button below.
Note - Autoplay has been disabled for this video.