Vietnam War Operations
Participation in the increasing American involvement in the Vietnam War, however, highlighted the minesweeper's lengthy WestPac deployment. From the mid-1960s, the ship commenced a regular schedule of deployments on "Operation Market Time" patrol stations in the coastal waters off South Vietnam, on patrol and interdiction to cut off the seaborne flow of supplies to the communist Viet Cong forces inside South Vietnam. During one such cruise in January 1967, while being diverted from a "Operation Market Time" patrol to conduct classified operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, the ship made the national news when she was rammed by a swordfish. Later during that same cruise, while the ship was crossing the South China Sea, she sighted a McDonnell F4-C Phantom crash into the sea. Widgeon altered course in time to rescue one man of the two-man crew. The other flier, the pilot, died in the crash. Commander, Naval Forces, Philippines, later cited Widgeon for her outstanding performance of duty during the rescue.
Read more about this topic: USS Widgeon (AMS-208)
Famous quotes containing the words vietnam war, vietnam, war and/or operations:
“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)
“High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Show’rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heav’n, and by success untaught,
His proud imaginations”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)