Tonkin Gulf Intrusion is an excerpt from "The Abel Mutiny" by Allen Meece.
"NOW GENERAL QUARTERS! GENERAL QUARTERS! ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS FOR SURFACE ACTION! THIS IS NOT A DRILL, I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"
There is a bright wash of land only seven miles away on radar and you ask a nearby officer, "What is that?"
He looks at the blip and ignores your question. You deduce that it is an officer-level secret and that you're where you shouldn't be, on a menacing warship seven miles from the shore of northern Vietnam.
Combat Information Center is manned with an air of competency. The radarman with an Elvis Presley hairstyle is drawing a surrogate battle scene that will be these men's only experience of the attack, unless, that is, one of the enemy dots gets within torpedo range and explodes the ship and this whole room descends below the surface of the Gulf of Tonkin. That could happen but don't think about it or you won't stay calm... Read More
