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MST
Two Detachment Golf deployed from Boat Support Unit One,
Coronado, California, on September 11, 1970, to provide
boat support to U.S. Navy SEALs and South Vietnamese
Navy SEALs (LDNNs) operating in and around Dung Island
from the Long Phu Intermediate Base near where the
Bassac River meets the South China Sea. |
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MST-2 Det Golf, 1970, Dan Savage showing the
rocket hole in bow of his LSSC |
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My
name is Bill Bremer, and, as LTJG Bremer, I had the privilege of being the OIC
to MST-Two, Det Golf. We had the honor of working with the SEALs of SEAL Team
One’s Juliett Platoon, lead by Lt. Joe A. Quincannon and Ensign Nick Walsh,
and with Victor Platoon lead by Lt. Roger Clapp and LTJG Jim Young, as well
as with LDNNs through their SEAL advisors, Lenny Horst and and Jim Berta. With
a good deal of credit going to these fine SEALs -- as well as to our own training
and performance, along with some luck -- the members of MST-Two, Det Golf returned
safely home on March 23, 1971.
I
should mention that a member of Juliett Platoon, Darryl Young, has written his
version of the exploits of that platoon in The Element of Surprise: Navy
SEALs in Vietnam. If you read his book, all references to the “MST” or to
boats after about page 188 (or September 20) are references to MST-2 Det Golf.
Despite his complimentary description of our efforts, Darryl Young, being a
SEAL, had SEAL tunnel vision [just as I had MST-2 tunnel vision], and thus he
got a lot of the stuff about MST-2 less than correct. For example, he
writes the OIC out of the MSSC and assigns all of his/my tasks to either the
coxswain or the SEAL OIC. He also shrinks the overall size of the MSSC crew
of seven to three or four. And in “our” part of the book he talks about
MST’s “Melfa,” who does all the things on our boat. However, since Melfa
is there for Juliett’s first operation, he was no doubt part of the detachment
we relieved, and he was gone after September 21, 1970. [If you are “Melfa”
or any one else in that part of the detachment, please contact me.] But
these are quibbles -- as to the operations and our detachment's parts in them,
his book rings true and I’ve relied on it for entries on my timeline. In short,
I’d rate The Element of Surprise a definite buy to supplement this web
site.
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