7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Band of Agents, July 13, 2006
This review is from: Special Agent, Vietnam: A Naval Intelligence Memoir (Hardcover)
Douglass H. Hubbard Jr., born in 1945, joined the Naval Investigative Service Office in Washington, D.C. and became an agent. With dreams of catching spies, he volunteered for service in Vietnam. "I was 23," he writes. "The world was my apple." It was 1969; that year U.S. troop strength would peak at more than half a million. He chose Da Nang.
His story, and that of many of the two dozen Naval Intelligence civilian special agents who also served in Vietnam, is told in "Special Agent, Vietnam: A Naval Intelligence Memoir" ($26.95 in hardcover from Potomac Books). Hubbard stayed in Vietnam for three year-long tours, the most of any Naval Intelligence Service (NIS) agent.
Hubbard notes the passage of time has taken its toll on the agents who served there. Some have died, memories have clouded; he writes that "it fell to me, more than four decades after the first agent deployment (in 1962), to tell as much of that story as possible."
The Navy refused "to confirm or deny the existence of all the documents and photographs that we had written and submitted," so Hubbard has instead relied on interviews with surviving agents, his own memories and publicly available information. The book includes helpful maps, photographs of the agents and a glossary of seemingly numberless military acronyms. The result is a careful study of the role of NIS agents in South Vietnam until the fall of Saigon in 1975. Hubbard's language is measured, but there is passion behind the words.
He investigated allegations of drug use among troops, suicides, rape, mail fraud, smuggling, spying and the death of Australian entertainer Catherine Ann Warnes (whose stage name was Cathy Wayne) in 1969. She "had been shot while performing with her troupe at the staff and officers' club" at a base in Da Nang. (A Marine sergeant was eventually arrested.)
Then there was "fragging," the use of a fragmentation grenade to cause mayhem or settle personal scores. Hubbard writes that "the small M26 frag packed a huge wallop. Its high-explosive charge was wrapped by strands of serrated stainless-steel wire, fragments of which traveled at several thousand feet per second on detonation -- providing a kill radius of about 15 meters."
Some cases were motivated by racial tension, such as the one in 1970 involving Pvt. Ronald McDonald, USMC, who, Hubbard writes, "may well have been a product of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's social engineering plan to fill vacancies in the armed forces by lowering entry standards." McDonald managed to obtain a British 36 "Mills Bomb" fragmentation grenade to use against an officer he felt had insulted him. The grenade went off, the officer survived, but McDonald got 80 years. One of the agents who worked the case told Hubbard in an interview, "They led this guy away in handcuffs, but he was still giving the black power salute."
After his time in Vietnam, Hubbard left the NIS to explore business ventures. He returned to Vietnam in the late 1990s and found much of the destruction had disappeared. "A visitor to Vietnam who knew the country during the war will probably at some point ponder about what difference America's brave attempt to rescue South Vietnam made. As I stared out over the verdant rice paddies in the former demilitarized zone ... I was prompted to think that, despite a preponderance of altruism, we had mattered very little in the context of Vietnam's two millennia of history."
Copyright 2006 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book reads like a mystery thriller and is all true., November 21, 2011
Special Agent Vietnam was an exciting look into the top secret world of naval security and intellegence during the
Vietnam conflict. The author describes various things the Navy and Marine Corps enlisted community were
into and how he solved military criminal cases against this community. He gives background as to how the
term "fragging" started and who ultimately was behind it. Though the author ultimately had to multi task
he remembers a lot of detail as to how he gathered evidence and went about interigating whitnesses.
I wish the author would consider writing a book about the US Army CID Special Agents and solving
crime in the military and gang investigations also.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5.0 out of 5 stars
Special Agent Vietnam, March 16, 2009
In his book "Special Agent Vietnam" (and in his book "Bound for Africa"), author Douglass Hubbard Jr. has educated me on the sensitive balance between war and peace. I have learned in general that civil societies must play out their aims and diplomacy. Citizens not happy (or those abused by) with any particular governments status quo, can "fight" (argue for)/advocate for any societal needs and causes, by going through established or otherwise appropriate societal channels (like legal/political/other manners), instead of resorting to things such as "terrorism" (on their own or through their or outside governments or other entities).
In his books, author Hubbard Jr. teaches history, geography, science, sociology, and more. Furthermore, Hubbard Jr. gives readers a glimpse of an unconventional life and a personal story.
Readers from all walks of life can enjoy and learn from this book. Special Agent Vietnam is a book I'll read again and again. I consider myself a liberal on most issues and by reading his books, Douglass Hubbard Jr. has helped to bridge a gap of mine, which is my perception of the balance of war and peace.
From David Wilson, MSW (social worker) and 20 year military (retired) veteran
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
