Share <Embed>

See All Buying Options

Other Sellers on Amazon

Add to Cart

$27.49
+ $3.90 shipping

Sold by: Blackwell's U.K. *Tracked Service to the USA*

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 2 images

Shore Duty: A Year in Vietnam's Junk Force Hardcover – September 18, 2009

by Stewart M. Harris (Author)

15 customer reviews

See all 3 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$3.99

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

—

$27.49

$34.30

Paperback

"Please retry"

$19.42

$15.25

$12.10

Three million men served in Vietnam and each has a story to tell. Shore Duty is the unique account from author Stewart M. Harris who served as senior advisor to Coastal Group 16 in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969. It is the tale of a small outpost in eastern Quang Ngai Province. From a fort built of coconut logs and mud, four Americans and eighty to ninety Vietnamese operated eight wooden junks in an area surrounded by a local population numbering in the tens of thousands. There were no schools, no doctors, no police, and no customs or civic officials. There was no one except these few Americans and Vietnamese trying to accomplish all of the duties a government should. What makes this story different is that these men were sailors. During the course of the Vietnam War, the sailors who rotated through the four-man team at Coastal Group 16 were awarded many commendations, including the Navy Cross, at least one Silver Star, a half dozen Bronze Stars, and ten Purple Hearts, four of them posthumous. This was not a typical Navy tour.

Shore Duty: A Year in Vietnam's Junk Force

Available from these sellers.

Special offers and product promotions

Product details

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: iUniverse (September 18, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1440149488
ISBN-13: 978-1440149481
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 15 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,142,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #111055 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Memoirs

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Start reading Shore Duty on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars

5 star		66%
4 star		27%
3 star		7%
2 star		0%
1 star		0%

Write a customer review

See all verified purchase reviews

Top customer reviews

A visit to the past

Byevzone75on March 24, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Upon my first being made aware about a book written by a fellow Naval Advisor concerning an ill-fated, God-forsaken piece of real estate known as Coastal Group 16 in the Northeast portion of South Vietnam, I rushed to get it. During my first two years in Vietnam as an advisor, I had been given a collateral assignment while on the staff of the Senior Naval Advisor, (sandwiched between two combat tours), to accompany the Vietnamese CNO to view that base after it had been overrun by the Viet Cong. I was to return with an "Eyes-On" report to get a US version of what actually took place that caused its fall and the subsequent deaths of the Vietnamese Base Commander and his Senior Naval Advisor. I describe that visit in my book "Pass Me The Rice," and therefore was eager to read Stew Harris' book. What really amazed me was the fortitude and devotion to duty exhibited by the author in even accepting those orders to a base whose previous three advisors had been killed in action. To this day I question what my decision might have been had it been me in that position.
The accomplishments of the Vietnamese officers and men along with their four brand new advisors in successfully staving off attack after attack during the ensuing year is exemplary against a persistent foe who thought they had wiped the base off the map once already. I commend LT Harris, not only in surviving that tour of duty but of putting it in writing so that the rest of us will have an insight into just how they managed to survive. It is definitely a must-read for those who didn't know we had US Navy personnel on the ground fighting like the Marines in Vietnam.
By Robert G. Kay, LT/USN-Ret

0Comment 5 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

He was amazed at how close to his own Vietnam experience it ...

ByCharlotte McKayon June 28, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

My husband. who is Vietnam Vet and actually served at a Coastal Group, could not put this book down. He was amazed at how close to his own Vietnam experience it actually was. So many people are unaware that the Navy actually had guys in country. He really loved reading this account of Stewart Harris' time in Vietnam.

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

Excellent memoir- well told

BySpruanceon October 17, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I don't know why it took me 4 years to find that someone had finally published an account of his Junk Force advisor experience, but I'm glad I paid for a hardbound copy.
I am amazed at his recollection but I guess he took better notes than I did. I too was a Senior Advisor, at Coastal Group 21 on Poulo Gambir Island, the next group south of CG 16, and only a year prior. CG 16's reputation was well know even back then and especially to me later, as Bill Fitzgerald was my USNA classmate. Even with our different situations and timing, I found Stewart's account to be highly accurate regarding all the general aspects of CG advisory lifestyle and relationships. It is unfortunnate that the RVN Junk Force Advisors, being so few and having had so infrequent interaction with each other, haven't been able to form a reunion group to share wonderful stories like this one. Every advisor, and most Swifties, would love it!
Jim Spruance
Virginia Beach

0Comment 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Shore Duty, an unusual memoir of naval service in Vietnam

ByLouis H. Hamlinon October 21, 2009

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I had a difficult time putting down Harris' novel. He has described a year as senior naval adviser at a Vietnam Junk Base during 1968 and 1969. That particular "Shore Duty" is probably known to very few Americans. Assuming the 6 junk bases mentioned similarity had 4 American advisers, of the hundreds of thousands of troops in Vietnam, his experience was shared by only 20 other U.S. Navy personnel at a given time.

Located in an area that was enemy controlled in numbers of combatants that were far in excess of the Vietnamese and U.S. Navy people stationed at the base,there had to have been constant pressure on Harris, his 3 fellow Americans and all the Vietnamese there. To compound the pressure, Harris was aware that all his predecessor senior advisers had been killed.

And yet, Lt. Harris and his counterpart Vietnamese officer led land patrols and ambushes that were not defensive, but offensive. It appears that land combat was foreign to both the Vietnamese and U.S. forces. They were sailors, not soldiers so that much of what is described seems to have been invented by the participants on their own.

I was fascinated to learn about some of the 75 encounters during Harris' service that were not only survived, but mostly successful. That was bravery at it's best and surely could only be done by young men. Harris' Bronze Star should have been a Silver if for only keeping his composure under such dangerous circumstances.

Read the book; you will find it spellbinding and filled with action that makes one's mouth drop.

Louis Howard (Retired newspaper columnist.)

0Comment 12 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Shore Duty - Isolated and Surrounded

ByDaniel M. Penceon March 6, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Shore Duty by Stewart M. Harris is a gripping tale of what life was like for the men who served as advisors to the South Vietnamese Navy in the late 1960's at one of the Vietnamese coastal junk bases. Many of these bases were isolated from friendly forces and in danger of being attacked and overrun on any moonless night. In fact, Harris's Coastal Group 16 already had been overrun prior to his arrival, and none of his three predecessors survived their one year tour. In describing his experiences, he has brought to the surface the memories of that period in my life when I felt like, "This is not what I thought I was getting into when I joined the Navy." In this stirring account, Harris has effectively captured the mix of experiences and feelings of my one year tour: adventure and boredom, security and insecurity, self-assurance and self-doubt, trust and distrust, love the Vietnamese and hate the Vietnamese, "I will survive this one year tour" and "I may die tonight." Dan Pence, Senior Naval Advisor, Coastal Group 14, 1970-1971.