OCEAN CITY — Robert M. Craig, a Vietnam veteran who has called Ocean City his summer home for over seven decades, has published a book of memoirs of the Vietnam era entitled “Red Rivers in a Yellow Field.”
The book documents the experiences of 34 military veterans, including Craig, who served in the 1960s and who, 50 years later, document their stories in this new collection. Authors served aboard ships in the Tonkin Gulf, led platoons in Vietnam, flew missions over North Vietnam or operated swift boats in the Mekong Delta. The accounts are moving, sometimes humorous, but always true events that represent a slice of the American experience during the Vietnam era. These were the “children of the greatest generation.”
Craig is the son of the late Captain Robert S. Craig who served as Captain of the Ocean City Beach Patrol from 1935-1986. Throughout his 52 years of service to the Town of Ocean City, Captain Craig mentored young men and women, taught them values such as responsibility and service, and molded the Ocean City Beach Patrol into what it is today. Captain Craig’s two sons and his grandson were members of the patrol in the early 1960s and 1990s.
Craig is an architectural historian and Professor Emeritus of the architecture school at Georgia Tech. From 1968-1970, Craig served in the U.S. Navy as a supply officer on USS Intrepid (CVS-11), an aircraft carrier now docked at the 46th Street pier 86 in New York City and has been converted to the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum. Following his military service, Craig received a Ph.D. from Cornell University and taught courses in the history of architecture, graduating his most recent doctoral student in 2017. Craig has published eight books (mostly historical studies of architecture), has presented more than 160 academic papers at professional societies across the U.S., and has lectured across the world.
Craig’s illustrated talk on the new Vietnam book will be presented at two venues in the Ocean City area — the American Legion Post 166 Hall, 2308 Philadelphia Ave, Ocean City, at 4 p.m. on Oct. 15 and again at the Ocean Pines Branch, Worcester County Library, 11107 Cathell Rd, Berlin at 2 p.m. Oct. 18. At both events books will be available for sale (and signing for those interested in author-signed copies). Cash or check, but no credit cards, please. Book sale proceeds will benefit the Principia School where the late Captain Craig taught Latin and math during the winter months.