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A Soldier's Tale: Memoirs of an Army Sailor |
Military autobiographies usually deal with the military portion of life. The obligatory introductory chapter with the background and life before the military but then it is all combat, blood and guts and tactics. Seldom do we read of their off duty time or life after military service. This book is different. There is combat – the experience of undergoing incoming artillery, sniper, machine gun fire, running the gauntlet of mines and ambushes and the medivac process – and the Army’s navy. But there is more.
There are stories showing the difficulty of adapting to the peacetime Army, adapting to the environment of peace and paperwork. There are tales of hippies, bikers, lifers and just plain people. Delivering pizza, driving a taxi and riding a Harley coast to coast not just once but twice. It is also a love story. Comedy and pathos mixed with excitement and adventure.
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As the Transportation Corps Historian, I have struggled to understand the nature of Army sailors. I tell by the look in their eyes when they talk that there is something special about what they do and I guess you just have to go to sea with them to understand it. I believe the secret to the Army’s navy is that the Army does not trust a commissioned officer to skipper a vessel. Regardless of the size of the vessel in the Army, it is skippered by a warrant officer or NCO. In other words, enlisted soldiers are skippered by former enlisted soldiers. The best way to describe them is pirates. Few Army mariners have disagreed with me on that.
This is where Robert Scott’s gift at writing comes into play. He has that incredible gift to place the reader behind a stack of melting sandbags on the deck of an LCU running the gauntlet of enemy fire. Rarely do we have works by enlisted men who describe with great honesty the seedier side of life in the service. I admire him and call him my friend but he is not the kind of guy I would want my daughter to go out with. His life combined the biker culture with that of an Army sailor and his recounting of his time in the Army reads like the novel, From Here To Eternity. Through his writing we are offered that rare glimpse of life in one of the oddest professions, the Army’s navy.
Richard Killblane
US Army Transportation Corps Historian
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