Sweet and Proper

Sweet and Proper is an allegory of the Vietnam War. The war experience of all who served is compressed into a single river boat patrol on the rivers of the Mekong Delta. The men assigned to the boats are everyman who went in harms way during the war: Sailors, Airmen, Soldiers and Marines. They're sent into a situation they can't possibly survive; yet they go, and do their duty.

X-ray patrol is ordered on a suicide mission: two boats, ten men into a Viet Cong stronghold of battalion strength. Lieutenant Roarke is aware of the insanity of it all but there is nothing he can do short of disobeying orders. Roarke and his men are being used to satisfy a host of intertwined, self-serving political interests that have little to do with the mission of winning a war. The patrol’s own squadron commander, a powerful United States congressman, a Vietnamese province chief, and a Vietnamese district chief all conspire for different reasons to send the patrol on a mission they can’t possibly survive. A US Army general and a correspondent round out the forces at play that will determine the fate of X-ray patrol. Roarke and his men proceed with the mission, hoping this will be another uneventful patrol based on Squadron’s near-perfect record of faulty intelligence. As they approach the area where the enemy is supposedly encamped, they discover through their own sources that this time, Squadron may be right. The patrol is committed; it’s too late to turn back. They proceed to the designated site and set up a water-borne ambush in a driving rain. As they wait through the night, it is they who feel like fish in a barrel.

Robert Healy served as a junior officer with the US Navy during two tours in the Vietnam theatre. His first tour was on a destroyer patrolling the waters off the North Vietnam coast and supporting troops in the South. His second tour was in-country on River Patrol Boats patrolling the rivers and canals of the Mekong Delta. He also served as an officer-in-charge of a sensor implant team setting electronic sensors on the infiltration routs of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He left the Navy immediately following his service in Vietnam and entered the world of business. After a thirty plus year career in Human Resources within the Pharmaceutical Industry he retired. Retirement provided opportunity to more fully pursue his advocation of writing. He has written three books: Sweet & Proper about the US Navy's experience with Riverine Warfare on the inland waterways of South Vietnam and two soon to be released novels within the genre of Christian Speculative Fiction. Currently Robert Healy resides in Lexington, South Carolina with his wife Kim.