Retired Coast Guard Commander Robert Douville tells the story of his life and times as a clerk typist and journalist with the first group of Coast Guardsmen that went over to Vietnam in 1966. He describes the Coast Guard’s mission in Vietnam, discusses some of the peculiarities of a converted LST, recalls doing some typing for a Special Forces captain and receiving a Tiger uniform as thanks, describes several missions with the Special Forces in his capacity as a journalist, and remembers an incident involving a drunk sergeant with a loaded .45 while he was lounging in his tailor-made black pajamas. Douville’s “shameful little secret” is that in his 36 years of service in the Coast Guard, first as enlisted, then as a warrant officer, and finally as a commissioned officer, he “never was assigned to the crew of a Coast Guard cutter.”