It wasn’t easy for my parents to send their only son to war.

For years, they’d been bombarded with television images of Vietnamese villages in flames, helpless children napalmed, Marines dodging bullets and statesmen pontificating about “the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Not to mention the daily American body count.

Now it was time for their only son to go to “that awful place” — as my mom called it — and fulfill the commitment I’d made with the Navy.

It was 1968 and America was in the thick of its gargantuan effort to stop the communists in the North from taking over the U.S.-backed government in Saigon.

An effort easier said than done, as we now know.

In college I’d been given a student deferment but I knew the minute I graduated I’d be drafted — so with a couple years of school left I decided to join the Naval Reserves.

The plan was two years of active duty, then four at home drilling at the local reserve station.

But all the guys in my age group knew the score and that channel closed up fast. So the recruiter offered me an option — join the Navy now as a seaman and when I graduated

I could go to something called Officer Candidate School, where I’d be commissioned as an ensign.

Seemed like a good deal to me.

You’re in the Navy now

A few days later I opened a big box in my parent’s living room, dragged out a heavy wool coat with anchors on the buttons and announced proudly: “Look, mom, I joined the Navy!”

She was not amused.

Eventually, I finished college and headed to Newport, R.I. for 120 days of intensive training in tactics, navigation, naval maneuvers, leadership and how to be a gentleman (the latter didn’t stick, I’m sad to report.)

Among many other things, we were taught the proper protocol for meeting one’s new commanding officer — something about putting one’s calling card on a silver platter just inside the CO’s front door.

By the time I got my gold bar, I had a sword (presented by my dad), orders to my first ship and a bit of a swelled head — you see, no one in my family had ever finished college, much less become a naval officer. I felt very grand indeed.

A few weeks later, I made ready to join USS Mahopac (ATA-196), an ocean-going tugboat stationed at the naval base in Yokosuka, Japan.

The executive officer was kind enough to send me an itinerary: soon after I boarded, the ship was headed to the Republic of Vietnam. This news was not taken lightly by my parents, but I saw the future shaping up as simply a big adventure.

The day I went to war

The morning my dad drove me to Travis Air Force Base to catch an overseas flight, my mother was resigned to the inevitable.

She was very quiet, a little nervous, with only one request. “Write to us all the time, about everything,” she said.

On the two-hour drive, my dad explained that he and mom weren’t thinking of this day as a goodbye to a son off to war. “It’s like you’re going on a vacation for a couple years, a chance to see the world,” he said. “Call it an extension of your education.”

The callowness of youth prevented me from realizing my dad’s true meaning for many years.

My parents were afraid. They were very afraid.

I arrived in Japan late on a snowy December night. On the base, a taxi drove me endlessly past a huge aircraft carrier to Berth 13 North. There, barely visible at the end of the dock was my new command.

I was met on the quarterdeck by a young seaman who explained I had to sleep in the captain’s cabin because my own space was being painted.

Thirty minutes later, as I stood at the sink stark naked with a mouth full of toothpaste, the door swung open to reveal my new commanding officer.

I came to attention as best I could and saluted — not an auspicious start to my Navy career.

To my surprise, Capt. James Ansley just grinned and invited me to his home, where he was having a party for the crew. Ansley’s wife Miyoko broke out a special bottle of saké, flecked with real gold, to celebrate my arrival.

For the next two years, USS Mahopac would be my home.

Small ship Navy

Commissioned in the late 1940s, the Navy’s auxiliary class of tugs were 150-feet long, designed for towing anything that floated — barges, cranes, target sleds, damaged ships, whatever was needed. There were five officers and 60 enlisted men and we depended on each other in a way that would be foreign on a big carrier or cruiser.

Offensively, the Mahopac sported two twin 20mm guns on the bridge but that was just for show — our real mission revolved around the towing gear on the aft deck.

On New Year’s Day 1969, we left Tokyo Bay and headed south.

The next morning my grizzled chief radioman, a 30-year-old from Georgia, quietly pulled me aside.

“Suh, you need to understand; I have passed more lighthouses than you have telephone poles,” he explained. “If you want to do good, keep yo’ eyes and ears open and yo’ mouth shut.”

Best advice I’ve ever gotten, then or since.

Welcome to the ’Nam

Our first gig was towing a barge fitted with on-board living quarters from the Philippines to a Marine base in Vietnam, at Nha Be on the Long Tau River.

Weather in the South China Sea in January is perfect, but as we entered the river’s mouth a surreal landscape emerged — both sides of the Long Tau had been defoliated to prevent ambushes. In the distance, silver specks were revealed as jet aircraft on bombing runs.

The day before we arrived the base had been shelled by the Viet Cong and tensions were high.

We tied up downstream from some heavily-armed swift boats and soon the barge was converted into a makeshift aid station, filled with dead and wounded Marines not much older than the athletes

I write about for The Record.

I remember that day, and others that followed. It turned out to be the wrong war for America, but I’m proud I served.

This weekend I’ll go through some old photos, read the letters

I wrote to mom, finger the buttons on my pea coat, burnish the sword and take a long, hard look at the green-and-white medal given to me in gratitude for my service by a nation that no longer exists.

Jeff VanDerford is the Record’s top sportswriter and a general assignment reporter.