Jeff Edwards is a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer, and an Anti-Submarine Warfare Specialist. He is currently working as a civilian expert consultant to the Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Command, the Navy's think tank for high-tech undersea warfare. His naval career spanned more than two decades and half the globe -- from chasing Soviet nuclear attack submarines during the Cold War, to launching cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf.
He puts his extensive experience as a Surface
Warfare specialist to work in his new novel,
TORPEDO.
In a plot that could easily be ripped from
today's headlines, TORPEDO combines an accident
at a nuclear power plant, an illegal arms
deal, and a biological warfare attack, to
ignite a crisis that could draw Western Europe,
the Middle East, and the United States into
all-out war. TORPEDO mixes the elements of
a classic sea chase novel with state-of-the-art
technology to create a cutting-edge Surface
Warfare Thriller.
Sound Off! Got an opinion about this article? Make your voice heard on the Jeff Edwards discussion forum.
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June 3, 2005
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I have a confession to make. I protested against the Vietnam War. I was in my mid-teens in the waning days of the war, that magical stage of life when all established authority is guilty until proven innocent, and the situation in Southeast Asia ranked fairly high on my list of outrages and injustices.
I wasn't a very good radical, mind you. I didn't burn any flags; I didn't spit on returning Soldiers, and I never called anyone a baby killer. My protestations were of a more low-key nature. I drew peace symbols inside the covers of my high school books, wrote rambling anti-war petitions that no one ever signed, and misquoted Abby Hoffman at regular intervals. I even made myself a protest tee-shirt, hand lettered with the oh-so clever slogan: 'Killing to end War is like F***ing to end Love.' (I don't think I ever had the nerve to wear that shirt. I couldn't bring myself to display the F-word in public, and my Mom would have murdered me on the spot. So much for teenaged rebellion.)
Looking back, I don't think I had a very clear anti-war agenda, other than the fact that I needed to be angry at something and Vietnam seemed like a worthy target. I had some vague notion that America had no business meddling in the affairs of other countries, but mostly I was infused with frustration and resentment. At the time, I attributed my dissatisfaction to the unnecessary loss of life in Vietnam, but the real sources of my angst were probably altogether unrelated to the war.
I was young, idealistic, and my adolescent hormones were in overdrive. I channeled all that juvenile anger into criticism of the President, the Establishment (whatever that means), and of course -- the U.S. military. Especially the military. After all, if those drones in uniform didn't show up to do the bidding of their evil overlords, there wouldn't be any wars. You remember the old shtick ... What if they gave a war and nobody came? I bought into that line one hundred percent.
Karma is a tricky little boomerang, isn't it? I spent so much time talking trash about the military that it was probably inevitable that I would wind up spending most of my adult life in uniform.
By the early nineteen eighties, I was stationed aboard a guided missile cruiser out of Yokosuka, Japan. I was new to the uniform, and still trying to wrap my mind around the idea of serving the military instead of bad-mouthing it, when I encountered one of those life-changing experiences.
One night, while operating in rough weather in the South China Sea, my ship sighted a boatload of Vietnamese refugees. Their boat wasn't much more than a sampan, and they had packed it to the gunwales with people. The wind was kicking up, the sea was getting uglier, and it was obvious that the little boat was not going to survive the coming storm. The refugees knew it, too. They accepted our offer of rescue without hesitation.
We dropped cargo nets and boarding ladders over the side, helping them climb up to the fantail of our ship as quickly as possible. Their boat was taking on water fast, and it looked like every wave that came along was going to sink it.
Somehow they all made it aboard safely. A quick headcount told us that there were about seventy of them. A couple of our crewmembers spoke a little Vietnamese, and a few of the refugees spoke a bit of English. We learned that they were all from the same village. In fact, they were the entire population of the village. No one had stayed behind.
Up on deck, I watched the empty sampan as it rolled and bobbed on the rising swells. How had they crammed so many people into so small a boat? More importantly, why had they done it? This was about seven years after the evacuation of Saigon. These people weren't fleeing the horrors of war. The war was long past. What could they possibly be leaving behind that was hideous enough to make an entire village of people strike out for the open ocean in a growing storm?
I asked pretty much that same question of one of the senior Petty Officers in my division as we rummaged through our lockers to find dry clothing for the villagers. He shrugged and dumped the question back into my lap. "Imagine it was you," he said. "How bad would things have to be for you to pack your mother, your sister, your wife, and your children into a rowboat and set sail for the open ocean? How bad would life in America have to become for you to risk everything to get away?"
I didn't like the question very much. I didn't have an answer, and I wasn't even comfortable thinking about it. "I don't know," I said.
"When you can answer that question," the Petty Officer said, "you'll have a pretty good idea of what these people are running away from."
