Stealth Boat

Book excerpt: Stealth Boat is a memoir of Gannon McHale's years in the U.S. Navy and of the men he served with in the Submarine Service between 1967 and 1970, and some of what they accomplished and experienced during that time. It is my also his remembrance of what it was like to grow up aboard a nuclear powered Fast Attack Submarine. McHale reported aboard USS Sturgeon (SSN 637) still a boy, and left a young man. This was the most important period in his personal development, and it profoundly affected the way he has lived the rest of his life. For many years any public discussion of the mission of Fast Attack submarines during the Cold War has been strictly guarded. The Freedom of Information Act now allows us to look back at a period in our nation’s history that is worth remembering, and the part played by the U.S Submarine Service in winning that war is undeniable. America in the late 1960’s was tortured by internal and external conflict. The war in Vietnam was unpopular and the Draft was still in operation.At the age of nineteen millions of young American men faced the probability of being drafted and sent to fight a war that many of them did not believe in. Some fled the country, others were drafted, and many more like the author chose to be proactive about their military service and enlisted. His book focuses on several men who did just that, and in the process became lifelong friends.