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UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY

SIXTIETH GRADUATION ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1940

This is a transcript of "The Long Voyage of the Class of Forty-U. S. Naval Academy" taken from the book The Class of Forty After Fifty Years © W. M. Carpenter 1990. Original text by C. H. Hall and W. D. Lanier.

Once again, off to the wars, but this time, with a difference. Relatively few of us were directly engaged, and those few seem to share a common opinion, "About Vietnam, the less said the better." The lack of a national purpose has always, throughout history, made life difficult for military leaders.

BGEN Fred Karch commanded a Marine brigade in the first major engagement with regular forces, the First Viet Cong Regiment, in northern Quang Ngai province. COL Gordon West, a non-grad who came back for a career as a Marine, served as Chief of Staff, First Marine Division.

Bill McKinney commanded PhibRon Seven, and won his second Legion of Merit. John Chase served as Deputy Commander of the Military Sealift Command, and John Straker as Chief of Staff, ComPatFor, Seventh Fleet. Tad Lothrop commanded a destroyer squadron off Vietnam. Bob Miller, while commanding TICONDEROGA, entertained Bob Hope. Tom Nicholson commanded a task group of ServGroup Three, the logistic support for the Navy off Vietnam. Dick Cochrane commanded the Amphibious Ready Group which conducted a dozen amphibious landings. Ted Hill in VEGA and Bill Carpenter in CASTOR replenished the task forces in the South China Sea.

In this, the third of our wars, two of them undeclared, some of us were involved in a different and very intimate way: we had sons serving in Vietnam, some of them infantry platoon leaders, where the casualty rate was fifty per cent. Our opinions of the political and military leadership during this period tend to be highly critical.