Walking on Water

By: Raymond Hunter Pyle

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

On the rivers, canals, and streams of the Mekong Delta the brown water Navy carried the men of the 2nd brigade, 9th Infantry Division to battle along narrow canals and rivers to landings deep in the delta. The sailors came from all over the Navy to do a dangerous job in horrible conditions. Their small boats were heavily armed and armored, but the Viet Cong leaned their weaknesses. They brought in weapons that could penetrate the armor and built bunkers that could resist the boat’s weapons. Operating on narrow canals and rivers, sometimes no wider than 100 feet, the boats were especially vulnerable to RPGs and recoilless rifles, and the Viet Cong learned to stage elaborate ambushes from both banks of the waterways to stop the boats with multiple armor piercing rockets. On some operations, Navy casualties were greater than suffered by the Army. Radioman First Class Everett Fisher with a crew of six sailors fresh out of training at the Inshore Operations Training Center at Mare Island, California arrives at Dong Tam Army/Navy base on the My Tho River in November of 1967. Fisher qualified as a boat captain in training and is anxious to get his boat and crew into the action. His crew is trained, motivated, and ready for a fight. They would get their fight, all they could handle and then some. They were about to learn the wisdom in the old saying, careful what you wish for.

Very good listen

The only distracting thing was the virtual voice used me all through the read where my or mine was appropriate.

AI narration???

Overall the story was good. However, the AI narration was terrible. The word my was constantly switched out with me. There was no voice inflection to cover emotion of the events. The read was very “jerky”. Not a smooth narration at all.