Vietnam
Vietnam definitely impacted Howard Swindle, and even his writing. His first book, Once a Hero, published in 1991 nonetheless, was about a helicopter pilot in Vietnam who robbed banks using helicopters. Told by his brother Jimmy Swindle that Howard would probably soon be drafted, Howard Swindle enlisted in the United States Navy in 1968, hoping not to be drafted into the Army or Marines, as the casualty rates were rising in the overseas conflict. Awarded Honorman of his basic training company, Howard Swindle went to a signal intelligence school at Corey Field in Pensacola, FL, and was later assigned to the USS Oklahoma City, a cruiser patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin in North Vietnam. One of his later stories involved receiving a message from President Nixon, to give to the Commander of the Seventh Fleet before Operation Moneypenny, or the mining of Haiphong Harbor. After serving a longer-than-usual tour of 14 months, Howard Swindle was honorably discharged from the Navy, and returned to Dallas, where he got a job at The Dallas Times Herald, which he lost in the mid-70s over a dispute with an editor over a news story.
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Famous quotes containing the word vietnam:
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)
“Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1992)
“I was proud of the youths who opposed the war in Vietnam because they were my babies.”
—Benjamin Spock (b. 1903)