The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War

In November 1967, 26-year-old John "Chick" Donohue, a US Marine Corps veteran working as a merchant seaman, was drinking at Doc Fiddler's bar in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan when bartender George Lynch, known as "the Colonel," issued an unusual challenge. A patriotic army veteran and community leader, the Colonel was furious that antiwar protesters were targeting the young troops. By late 1967, Inwood had already buried 28 of its sons in Vietnam. The Colonel declared that someone should go to Vietnam, find the neighborhood boys, and bring each one a beer and words of support. He asked to borrow Chick's merchant seaman card, but Chick realized the Colonel could not pass for him and volunteered instead.

Word spread overnight. Families crowded the bar with names, unit designations, and military addresses. Mrs. Collins, mother of Chick's friend Thomas "Tommy" Collins, a military policeman in Vietnam, tearfully asked Chick to deliver her love. Chick compiled a list that included Tommy; Rick Duggan of the First Air Cavalry Division; Kevin McLoone, a civilian helicopter technician; Bobby Pappas, a drafted communications specialist; Joey McFadden, an army serviceman; and Richard Reynolds, a Marine second lieutenant.

At the National Maritime Union hiring hall, Chick secured a position as oiler, an engine-room crewman, on the SS Drake Victory, a refurbished World War II ammunition ship bound for Vietnam. He bought nearly a case of New York-brand beers and hid them in the ship's refrigerator. He called his mother, telling her only that he was headed to "Asia" and deliberately omitting any mention of Vietnam. After departing New Jersey, the ship transited the Panama Canal and spent eight weeks crossing the Pacific.

On January 19, 1968, the Drake Victory anchored at Qui Nhon on the South China Sea coast. Chick fabricated a story about delivering family news to a stepbrother and persuaded the captain to grant him shore leave. On a water taxi, he encountered military policemen from Tommy Collins's unit, who brought him directly to Tommy. Chick handed him a beer and delivered greetings from home. He discovered that officers throughout Vietnam assumed he was a CIA operative, since nothing else explained a civilian in casual clothes roaming a combat zone. This "CIA Effect" repeatedly smoothed his passage.

A First Air Cavalry crew chief flew Chick to An Khe in the Central Highlands to search for Rick Duggan, whose company had moved north toward the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North and South Vietnam. On a deserted road, Chick flagged down a jeep whose driver turned out to be Kevin McLoone, another name on his list. Kevin helped him reach an airstrip, where the CIA Effect got Chick boarded ahead of enlisted soldiers.

After multiple flights, Chick reached Landing Zone Jane in Quang Tri Province. Rick Duggan's ambush patrol was radioed to return. Rick found Chick in a foxhole and was incredulous. That night, Chick slept on the forward perimeter with Rick's squad. North Vietnamese Army soldiers were detected nearby, and a firefight erupted. The next morning, Chick shared his remaining beers. Rick arranged a helicopter out, warning that the company's next move was too dangerous for a civilian.

Chick's return south was difficult. He narrowly escaped Vietcong-controlled territory on a dark road, and when he reached Qui Nhon, the Drake Victory had sailed without him. An air force pilot flew Chick to Saigon, where a consulate official informed him he needed a passport he had never possessed to obtain an exit visa. Chick subsisted on a stipend from a French shipping agent and frequented the Caravelle Hotel's rooftop bar. His visa was approved, and a flight was scheduled for January 31, 1968, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year known as Tet.

The night before, Chick celebrated with Johnny Jackson, a fellow merchant mariner aboard the SS Limon, a refrigerator ship. In the early hours, he returned to his hotel in Cholon, Saigon's Chinatown. What he had mistaken for fireworks were the opening salvos of the Tet Offensive, a coordinated assault by approximately 84,000 North Vietnamese and Vietcong (VC) soldiers on over a hundred sites across South Vietnam. His hotel manager screamed "Beaucoup VC!" and raced Chick toward the American embassy.

Chick arrived to find the embassy under siege. Nineteen VC commandos had stormed the compound, killing military police at the gate. By morning, army reinforcements and paratroopers secured the building; 17 attackers were killed. Chick entered the compound and learned that the airfield was also under VC control. His flight was canceled.

Two men whom Chick suspected were CIA operatives offered him a ride toward the Presidential Palace, where a rocket destroyed the vehicle ahead of them. Chick spent the night alone in an abandoned apartment, hallucinating scenes from his Inwood childhood.

Over the following weeks, Chick became entrenched in besieged Saigon. He befriended Nuong, a South Vietnamese policeman, and stayed at Nuong's father's hotel. With the city blockaded, Chick boarded the Limon daily, filling duffel bags with frozen food that he distributed to hotel staff, local families, and even animals at the Saigon Zoo, whose keepers had been killed.

Chick also traveled to Long Binh, the US military's largest ammunition depot, to find Bobby Pappas, who was stunned to see him. Days later, Chick watched from the Caravelle rooftop as a massive explosion lit up the sky over Long Binh. He rushed back at dawn and found Bobby alive but furious in his underground bunker.

As weeks passed, CBS anchor Walter Cronkite broadcast an editorial calling for negotiation, prompting President Lyndon Johnson to reportedly say, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Chick used a shortwave radio at a United Service Organizations (USO) center, a facility for American troops, to call his parents. His mother asked when he was coming home, and Chick promised, "Soon."

A sniper attack wounded Chick's motorcycle driver and left Chick injured. When the VC rocketed the Limon on the Saigon River, the captain demanded immediate unloading. The ship was short one oiler, and Chick, invoking union rules, secured the berth. The Limon set sail, and Chick watched Saigon recede from the deck.

The ship docked in Seattle. Chick collected his pay, bought new clothes, and flew to New York. A taxi delivered him to Doc Fiddler's bar, where the Colonel and regulars erupted in celebration. The Colonel, who never drank on duty, poured himself a beer and toasted Chick. Late that night, Chick arrived at his parents' home in New Jersey, where his mother made him promise never to return to Vietnam.

In the book's afterword, Chick describes his gradual ideological shift. He learned that Richard Reynolds, the Marine second lieutenant he never found, had been killed the day after Chick arrived in Vietnam. Chick acknowledges that while he originally viewed antiwar protesters as traitors, the misleading claims of General William Westmoreland, the senior US commander in Vietnam, and the embassy's vulnerability changed his perspective. He came to see that the protesters "were trying to stop more boys from being killed for somebody else's legacy." Tommy Collins came home to crowds screaming "Babykillers" and joined the NYPD. Rick Duggan completed 153 combat assaults and also became a police officer. Bobby Pappas struggled with nightmares and alcohol addiction before finding sobriety. Chick concludes that government is not to be trusted, a conviction that shaped his career in union organizing and advocacy.