During this show, shown 5-21-06, the narrator makes a mistake by describing the gun on a Cutter as a "Five inch thirty-eight millimeter." It seems the writers of this program were unaware of the way Naval Guns are described. The diameter of the bore is five inches, but the 38 is descriptive of the barrel length in diameters, that is 38X five inches. This is yet another disappointment that the Military channel and the History channel has brought to us. If we can't trust them to do the research for small things (admittedly minor)why should we believe the rest of their programs?

I would not worry about a tiny technical error in a gun system that no longer exists in active U. S. service. Just think, it could have been said the gun was 127mm which would have made a larger impression on our metric orientated counterparts of the other services.

I do know the gun made an impresson on Charlie.

Over all, it was a good representation of the Coast Guard in Vietnam in the time allowed. The Coast Guard was the only service to have active roles in the all the services in Vietnam. It worked with the Navy, Army, Air Force, USAID, the State Department in a wide variety of missions.

The important thing to remember is the Coast Guard was not under full Navy control as is the popular belief. It was as the other services, independent, and served in joint operations.

The Discovery Channel should rerun the show on its home network and press the DVD into active publication for those not having the Military Channel as part of their cable package.

Overall, a Bravo Zulu to the producers Tam Communications for the fine work they did in telling a little known story about a little known service in war.

I have to agree, it was an excellent presentation overall. I've read dozens of treatments of the Army, Marines, AF and Navy in Vietnam, but it was news to me on the level of Coast Guard contribution.

Virgil61.

You are not alone. I once met a 30-year USMC Colonel who did not know the Coast Guard was in Vietnam. The Coast Guard fired a lot of ammunition in support of the Marine Corps as well as the Army.

I just jioned this and was thumbing thru the forums when I ran across this article. I never saw the show on the coast guard but I knew they were there in Nam.
I know a guy that told me some stories when he was stationed there doing some diving for mines also.

Muleskinner