The Third Tour: Stories from the U.S. Navy III

by Bob Stockton

“Help me, Marty, Help me.” Radarman First Class Zack Martin’s physical wounds that were inflicted when his ship was attacked by friendly aircraft while on patrol in Vietnam have healed. His psychological wounds are another story. Recently, the flashback dreams about his friend Campbell’s mortal wounding from that terrible morning have diminished, but the panic attacks have not. His fiancé Camille is pressuring him to leave the Navy and seek help. To add to his dilemma, word has just recently been received that his new ship, a destroyer, is headed back to combat duty in Vietnam waters. Martin is reluctant to throw away nearly ten years of his navy career. He must soon decide whether to seek psychiatric help at the Navy Hospital and accept a medical discharge or suppress his fears and sail once again into harm’s way. In ‘The Third Tour,’ Bob Stockton draws on his personal experiences and more to deliver a fast-paced, action story of Navy combat both on the high seas and along the dangerous brown water rivers of Vietnam, placing the reader directly in the line of enemy fire.

159 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 28, 2019

About the author

I was born in west Texas purely due to a scheduling error. My mother made the schedule and I was the error. At the time, my father was in the service, stationed at a remote air base. My mother planned to return to Michigan to have her baby in a hospital with her doctor in attendance. Oops! I showed up over a month ahead of schedule. My father had to flag down a truck on the highway in order to get my mother to a doctor’s office in a nearby town. I’ve been a little out of phase ever since.

Growing up, I was the oldest of six, three of each. My childhood was a little reminiscent of the old TV show the Waltons. We were just about as poor, but we didn’t own a mountain. Actually, my memories of those years are almost all good ones. I may not have had everything I wanted, what kid does, but I did have everything I needed.

By the time I graduated from college I had a family to support, which meant there was no time to take up mountain climbing or to work my way around the world on a tramp steamer or to write. Instead, by pure chance, I got into the then fledgling field of Data Processing. This was way back when computers were room sized and had mouse sized memories. It turned out I had an aptitude for programming. To me it was like getting paid to solve puzzles. I ended up spending thirty years in that profession. Most of it managing software developers, though I did put in a seven year stint as what I called a Technological Mercenary. That is, being self-employed, completing technical projects for clients on a contract basis.

Thinking thirty years was more than enough, my wife and I decided to drop out. Since then, we have spent most of our time at our home in northern Michigan. While we’re not really remote, we are by ourselves most of the time. I do share a few traits with my main character, Jack Chard, and like him, I am a bit of a recluse.

My other motivation for dropping out was to get the chance, finally, to write.

I had a bit of success writing for outdoor oriented magazines, but what I wanted was to write novels, specifically thrillers. My Chard stories, Dead Game and Dead In Seven, are my first efforts in this genre.

Currently I’m at work on something different, a novel set during the Civil War. I have read quite a bit about this tragic period and have recently learned that I had a number of ancestors involved on both sides of the conflict. I do not have a title, I never do until finished, but I hope to have this work done in 2013.