Wordsri | Author Profile

- Author

Frank A. Wood

About the Author

After volunteering for the draft in late 1969, I served in the United States Navy from 1970-74, serving aboard USS Mullinnix DD-944 from boot camp and A-school short of four years. Mullinnix, a Norfolk-based destroyer, was ordered to Vietnam in April 1972. I returned from Vietnam with a physiological injury. The manifestation of which took five decades to appear. Five decades to finally realize that I had been severely wounded. My memories had an urgency I could not ignore. Like specters beckoning from the edge of a shadowy world. I’d killed people. Lots of them. Easy not to give it a second thought when you are young,...

I returned from Vietnam with a physiological injury. The manifestation of which took five decades to appear. Five decades to finally realize that I had been severely wounded. My memories had an urgency I could not ignore. Like specters beckoning from the edge of a shadowy world. I’d killed people. Lots of them. Easy not to give it a second thought when you are young, foolish, full of piss and vinegar, thinking you’re bullet proof. Then time marches on. An old sailor replaces the young sailor. The old sailor starts to remember.

I remember what I did. And the damnable sky-lark attitude I had about doing it. It began to ravage me. In 2019 I reached out to the VA. Diagnosis? 30% PTSD service-connected disability. In 2021-2 my symptoms exploded. I was being eaten up from the inside. I was so stinking guilty I spiraled into a PTSD-induced depression. Without my wife Kim’s and the VA’s support this book may never have been written. I was damn scared. I knew I couldn’t continue on this trajectory. I reached out to the VA again. Diagnosis? 70% PTSD service-connected. I completed PTSD/Depression therapy, insomnia therapy, and cognitive process therapy/testing in addition to starting PTSD meds. Yet I took another psychological dive into the abyss. Diagnosis? 100% PTSD total and permanent service-connected.

Writing “Last Gunship USS Mullinnix DD-944 1972 Memories of a FTGSN” has helped me remove the lingering spiders in my head. You don’t get over PTSD. You learn to live with it.

I’m currently working on a second historical novel. A prequel as they say. Same ship, ten years earlier, set during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and Quarantine. I live in Northwest Arkansas with my wife Kim and Ely. Since early 2023 I’ve been writing full-time.

If you were in Vietnam, no words are necessary. If you were NOT in Vietnam, no words can explain. My book does. Available B&N, Amazon, Google Books, IndieBound, Books-a-Million, Indigo, Kobo, and Hudson.

I wonder sometimes, is history like the falling tree in the forest? If nobody remembers, did it still happen?

Less

- Books

Last Gunship USS Mullinnix DD-944 1972 Memories of a FTGSN

$31.99

War kills everything, beyond mere material and physical destruction! In this military thriller, experience the 1972 Easter Day Invasion of South Vietnam from the perspective of someone who had the unenviable job of pulling the trigger. Killing on a daily basis as a dissolving sense of reality sets in. Known as the gunline, positioned a few hundred yards off the coast, the ship has entered the fresh-air mental asylum of Indochina.

Disoriented and surreal, the crew watches tanks battle on the beach and napalm transform vibrant green landscape into molten red and orange as fireballs devour both oxygen and vegetation. Disillusionment sets in. With it, the destruction, exhaustion, humor, and terror of war. The astonishing intimacy among shipmates, along with their regrets and mental anguish, is underscored by the fundamental struggle for survival.

In this true, historically accurate story, the author takes the reader on a psychosomatic roller coaster from indifference to reality. From combat to the best liberty ports in the world. From inner conflict and suppressed emotions to guilt, regret, and post-traumatic stress. From serving your country to experiencing scorn and hostility back home. In the face of such tragedies, stories perhaps, are the best memorials we have. In unflinching detail through vivid and poignant language, the author leaves nothing to the imagination.

Where had it all gone wrong?
In war, we all lose