Muddy Jungle Rivers

Muddy Jungle Rivers is a close-up look at life on a gunboat during 1968, the bloodiest year of the Vietnam War. It's the story of a seven-man crew captained by a volatile pro-war enlisted man. When Wendell Affield arrived in Vietnam in February 1968, the Tet Offensive was in full swing. Affield, cox'n on Armor Troop Carrier 112-11 and the rest of River Division 112 operated non-stop. They were subjected to ambushes, snipers, North Vietnam Army artillery, and river mines. Vampire mosquitoes, racism, boredom, and a volatile boat captain strained boat crew morale. On a Sunday afternoon, ATC 112-11, the platoon of army troops on board, and the boat crew were savaged in the opening moments of a Viet Cong Main Force ambush. Like Philip Caputo's "A Rumor Of War," this narrative takes the reader into frustration, rage, terror, death, betrayal, and the search for redemption. Muddy Jungle Rivers has 29 chapters, maps,and photos. "I could speak at length here about the merits of Muddy Jungle Rivers: its eloquence, its emotional generosity, its urgent and haunting prose. But the book's enduring virtue is that it records, with utmost fidelity, the unspeakable horrors of the author himself, as a young man adrift in the moral chaos of war." From the Foreword by Steve Almond, author of God Bless America: Stories, and many other works