Fifty-six years ago, a young Mexican American man named Raúl Herrera found himself on a Swift Boat during the Vietnam War. It’s an experience that’s stayed with him all these years, and one he’s now exploring, publicly, with his new memoir Capturing Skunk Alpha: A Barrio Sailor’s Journey In Vietnam (paperback, Kindle). In the following email interview, Herrera discusses why he wanted to tell this story, as well as why it took him so long.
To start, what is Capturing Skunk Alpha: A Barrio Sailor’s Journey In Vietnam about?
The memoir tells of my journey that begins with 1960s life in the barrio of San Antonio, Texas, and eventually becoming part of a six-man rag-tag Navy combat boat crew aboard Swift Boat PCF-79 in Vietnam. The history of Operation Market Time (Coastal Surveillance Force) and of the development of PCFs (Patrol Craft Fast — Swift Boats) is introduced. The Operation Market Time mission was to prevent the infiltration of steel-hulled resupply trawlers from North Vietnam into various locations along the 1200-mile coastline of South Vietnam. PCF-79 and her crew accomplished that mission on July 15, 1967 by capturing a 120-foot resupply trawler code named Skunk Alpha filled with more than 90-tons of contraband. Premier Nguyen Cao Ky and Chief Of State Nguyen Van Thieu decorated our crew for our accomplishment. In a nutshell, Capturing Skunk Alpha tells the Swift Boat Story during the Vietnam War.
What prompted you to write this memoir, and why write it now as opposed to, say, 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, or 10 years after it happened?
For years after my return from Vietnam, I was haunted by the spiritual memory of Bobby Don Carver, our crew’s lead petty officer. He was killed in action on December 6, 1967, ironically, less than three miles from where we captured the enemy ship. During one flashback, I had an epiphany. I decided that he wanted me to tell our Swift Boat story, including his heroic action on the night we captured the enemy ship. He was responsible for taking down that enemy vessel, thus saving thousands of friendly forces lives by keeping much needed supplies from the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army Regulars.
The world is a very different place now than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and 10 years after the events of Capturing Skunk Alpha happened. Especially in the way we look at people’s identity. The subtitle of Capturing Skunk Alpha is A Barrio Sailor’s Journey In Vietnam. Do you think the book would’ve been different had you written it years ago, and especially in the area of you being a Mexican-American soldier on a U.S. Swift Boat?
The epiphany I had occurred in the late ’70s while on a visit to the quaint island of Lemnos, Greece. The literary journey has taken four-decades plus. Personal circumstances forced delay upon delay along the way. The historical importance of the work required extensive research. The work often accumulated dust, PTSD being one of the setbacks. My ethnic-based stubbornness and the promise I made to Bobby Don Carver kept the project alive. My belief is that the story would not have been any different as it turned out years later. It’s a reflection of an eyewitness account to war — time does not change that. I insisted on maintaining the Mexican American / Hispanic point of view as well as a deck level observation of small boat combat as opposed to books on the war written by well know journalists, politicians and Admirals.
While most people in your position would’ve done what you did, write this as a memoir, some would’ve chosen to do so as a novel. Did you ever consider doing that?
Early in the development of the story, I considered it a narrative nonfiction work; also referred to as creative nonfiction. When considering nonfiction, I envisioned a read that is dry; facts, just the facts, a history book. I decided to invoke literary license. I wanted to make the characters in my story come alive to the reader. To accomplish this, I used dialogue; dialogue based on interviews with many of the sailors / characters throughout the book. I also combined a fictional approach to the prose, again, putting the reader in the middle of the action. The publisher determined the work as Memoir / Vietnam
In preparing to write Capturing Skunk Alpha, did you look at anyone else’s memoir to see what to do, and what not to do?
From the start, I never considered myself as a writer. I only knew that I had a story to tell. In high school, well…let’s just say that I got a passing grade in English. I don’t recall reading a book in high school. Only two books grabbed my attention and pulled me in: The Andromeda Strain and Johnathan Livingston Seagull. Far from the classics. I picked up my writing skills from my participation in writing groups in Houston, Texas. I was told by a critique break out group in one meeting that what I had read needed to be my “hook.” I had to ask what a hook was. I eventually dabbled in freelance writing. The first published article was about a blueberry farm. I also wrote articles for Nuestras Vidas, a magazine (in English) that featured noted individuals from within the Hispanic community in Houston. I’ve also had articles published in Sea Classics magazine and VIETNAM magazine. The New York Times also ran a piece I co-authored with a Swift Boat officer.
I would imagine writing this book stirred up some painful memories. In writing Capturing Skunk Alpha, how often did you find yourself struggling to decide whether or not to include a painful or uncomfortable detail, and how did you solve these conundrums?
The spiritual haunting episodes I experienced ended after I made the promise to Bobby Don Carver to tell our story and began writing the first chapter. It’s been a much needed catharsis. I have written this story in Carver’s memory and to the memory of the 50 fellow Swift Boat sailors who gave their all during the war. Carver was my nemesis and mentor for eleven months: two and a half months of training, and eight months together in Vietnam.
I was born 6 months after the incident in question. And a lot of your potential readers were also born after the war ended. What do you think someone like me will get out of reading Capturing Skunk Alpha?
My hopes are that readers in your age group will experience what it was like to be in combat, not on land, but rather on the high seas.
More importantly, what do you hope we’ll get out of it?
I would like readers to take a journey back in history and learn about a side of the Vietnam War that even today, little is known about these tiny men of war and the brave men who rode them into harm’s way.
Hollywood loves making movies about real-life heroic situations, especially in wars. Do you think Capturing Skunk Alpha could work as movie?
Getting the Swift Boat story in print was a dream that has finally come to fruition. A book agent once noted that the title — at that time, it just called Skunk Alpha — reminded him of the movie Under Siege starring Steven Seagal. Aside from Apocalypse Now, movies about Vietnam have mostly been about the ground war. And then, there is President John F. Kennedy’s movie, PT-109, sea battles of the Pacific against the Japanese in World War II. A quote from the trailer: “A whopping story of courage and action; a story worth telling; and a story of which every American will feel proud.” The time is right to bring to light such a similar story of one of the biggest triumphs the U.S. Navy had against North Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh Trail by Sea campaign.
And if someone wanted to adapt Capturing Skunk Alpha into a movie, who would you want them to cast as you? Oh, and this is not a test; you’re more than welcome to ask your wife for help with this question.
Too funny… I’ve always said I have some resemblance to rock star Bruno Mars (especially in his video of “Uptown Funk”). Since this is a fun question, a couple of personal pictures are also attached for comparison [see above]. Oh, but the one I would have loved to play my part was a younger Isai Morales from the movie La Bamba (same ’60s hair style).
So, is there anything else you think people need to know about Capturing Skunk Alpha?
I believe that what sets my book apart is that the story is being told by a young, inexperienced Mexican American sailor taken out of a San Antonio barrio and thrown into a war torn battle front he did not foresee.
Finally, if someone enjoys Capturing Skunk Alpha, what memoir of some else who served in Vietnam would you suggest they check out?
Not a memoir, but reads like one…The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Incidentally, O’Brien served in the same Province, Quang Ngai, in Vietnam where the trawler was captured and Bobby Don Carver was killed.
