All at Sea

It was March 1969, and the three of us were sitting in a Boston Whaler a mile off the Viet Nam coast, and two miles south of the Demilitarized Zone.  The engine had died, and the current was carrying us north at three miles per hour.  I had been in-country for a little over a week, and already my roommate had been med-evaced to Japan, full of metal from a Chinese 122mm rocket.  We didn't know if he would live or die.  I was floating north toward a reservation at the Hanoi Hilton and my war wasn't even 10 days old.  How in hell did I ever get into a fix like this?