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Long ago and far away: 'Tuck' skippered Vietnam Swift Boat
By SCOTT SWANSON, Staff Writer
The Mining Journal

PHOTO: Robert "Tuck" Brant in Vietnam, 1968 .

MARQUETTE - Robert "Tuck" Brant has an atypical outlook on life, one that he says is based on his year-long tour as a swift boat captain in Vietnam.

However, his no-nonsense, pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mantra is also positively Yooperian.

"I'm a pretty mellow guy," said Brant, 62. "At the end of the day I ask myself two things: Did I get shot at, and is there a beer in the ice box."

"If I didn't get shot at, and there's beer in the fridge, then my day wasn't as bad as it could have been."

Brant, who was born and raised in Harvey, graduated from Graveraet High School in 1960 and Northern Michigan University in 1965, was recently embroiled in a storm of controversy as a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The group of Navy veterans disputed claims of heroism by now defeated presidential candidate John Kerry, who briefly commanded a swift boat during the war.

While Brant never served on the same boat as Kerry, they slept in the same barrack, and Brant claims he often helped the future presidential candidate back into bed after bouts of sleepwalking.

"He was different," Brant said. "Intelligent, very aloof. Everything about him was centered around him."

Brant said shortly after Kerry arrived in Vietnam, he told his fellow officers he would eventually be president, and was always keeping journals and taking notes.

"He was already collecting bullets for his resume downstream," Brant said. "I give him credit for having a plan. He almost did it."

Brant considers his time as a Navy lieutenant skippering a swift boat as the "most rewarding" time of his 25-year Navy career.

Swift boats were speedy, 50-foot vessels that patrolled the rivers and coasts of Vietnam, and were the workhorses of Navy surveillance. Everyone member of the five-man crew who served on Brant's Swift Boat was wounded, and two of his sailors were killed.

"It was a very hard year," said Brant, who was decorated with three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart for his service. "But I've never met a finer group of young men. They carried more responsibility and accountability than most people do in their entire lives."

Brant remained in the Navy until his retirement as a commander in 1989. He served as the chief engineering officer on the U.S.S. Sarsfield, the executive officer of the U.S.S. O'Brien and commanding officer of the U.S.S. Luce, which was deployed to the Persian Gulf during the war between Iraq and Iran.

Recently, the O'Brien and the Luce were decommissioned, which Brant half-jokingly says caused him to develop a new sense of mortality.

"You identify with that ship all your life. You grew up with it, you took it from its infancy and onward," he said. "And now they're going to cut it into razor blades?"

"Tuck," a nickname Brant received in the Navy for his short hair, ruddy complexion and rotund stature ("I wasn't really a 'military poster' type of guy," he said), said he would like to move back to Marquette someday, although he thinks the long winters would be a hard sell to his wife, Barb.

"I'd love to get a little place up here on the water and enjoy the people," he said. "I still consider Marquette my home."

To express his love of the region, he launched into a lengthy anecdote about cashing a $50 Virginia check at a Marquette bank, one where he didn't have an account. The check was cashed, no questions asked.

When he asked the teller why she cashed it, she replied that he would have to be pretty dumb to come all the way from Virginia just to rip the bank off for $50.

"You don't run into that (in Virginia)," he said. "Yoopers. You just can't put it any other way."

With the election past, Brant's eye has turned to other matters: namely his beloved Packers, of which he proudly owns his one share of stock.

"I'm hoping we've turned the corner," he said, about the roller-coaster first half of the green and gold's season. "I'm an optimist."

Retired from the military, Brant is currently a construction manager for a land development company in Chantilly, Va., a place he describes as "blacktop, Wendy's and traffic." He returns to the Marquette area every year.

The Mining Journal

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