Aboard the USS Dupont in the dark of night, 19-year-old Harry Wynn watches tracer fire mark a target on the beach near Da Nang Harbor, Vietnam.

It's 1968, and Wynn has a job to do."We were anchored in Da Nang Harbor. At night, we'd pull up the hook and move along the shore. You could see the machine guns, every fifth round, the tracer, firing out. Then we would come over and shell those areas. They were a call for fire from the beach. If somebody's pinned down, they're calling for a helicopter, plane or a ship to bail them out," he says.Wynn was a fire control technician."My job was to pull the trigger on the shoot. When everything was set, I'd call the gun mount and say 'mount one, five rounds, able able common, load and shoot.' I'd close my firing key, and the captain in the mount would close his. If something went wrong in the mount, he'd open his key. It was all on a circuit. If he opened it, it wouldn't fire. Both of us had to have the key shut."When it was ready, I'd get the high sign to fire. I'd tell the gun captain, first round, I'd shoot," he recalls.Wynn wore his trusty illuminated Timex to count the seven seconds between shots."We all had a job to do, and you had to focus on that," he says.Wynn's Vietnam-era tour of duty had a hasty start.He was 19 and working at Bethlehem Steel."I called the draft board the Monday before Memorial Day 1968," he says.He spoke with Nancy Solomon, who told him he would be getting his notice that Friday."I decided I didn't want to be drafted. I went to the Air Force recruiter in Hazleton, but he wasn't there that day," Wynn recalls.He talked instead to a Navy recruiter, and signed up for four years."I didn't know what I was getting into," he says. "That was on a Tuesday morning. I went to work on Wednesday and cleaned out my locker. Thursday was Memorial Day, and I left for the Navy on Friday, May 31. So, from the time I went to see the recruiter, I was gone in three days."He and other recruits went to Great Lakes, Illinois. They were there about two months, then he came home on 14 days' leave. On Aug 15, 1968, Wynn reported to the Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia.No sooner did he hit the pier, his sea bag over his shoulder, when a sailor asked him what ship he was on. When he replied the USS Dupont, the man told him the ship was due to leave for Vietnam the next week."I thought this guy was pulling my leg," Wynn says.Once aboard ship, an officer told him, 'You're just in time. We leave for Vietnam next Friday,'" Wynn says.They set sail for Vietnam on Aug. 23, 1968. The ship journeyed through the Panama Canal, then on to Guam, then Subic Bay in the Philippines."Then reality set in. You're actually in a foreign country now, and things are very much different. From there, we went to the gun line for the first time. We worked long hours. If we were refueling, or taking on stores of ammunition on that day, and it was your time off, forget it, you were on. I can remember we would get off watch, go to a refueling station, and then right back on watch again. My watches were the worst times of the day, midnight until 6 a.m. and noon to 6 p.m.," he says. "Midnight to 6 a.m., if we had a preselected targets, that's when we would be shelling the beachhead."Wynn recalls he and his fellow sailors were not very aware of the anti-war turmoil at home."There was not much communication. We saw movies, got letters. We hardly ever got newspapers," he says.He received Time magazine."We would share those, and read books. You had to go to an exchange to make a phone call. It was expensive, about $15, and you only got three minutes," he says.Others told him of being met by protestors in Oakland and San Francisco."They were spit on. I didn't experience any of that," Wynn says. "When I came home, you were welcomed. The Legion and VFW posts had welcome home Vietnam vets signs."On Feb. 12, 1969, Wynn pulled the trigger on the firing key for the last time. The USS Dupont pulled anchor and headed back to Subic Bay, arriving on Valentine's Day. The ship arrived back in Norfolk on April 11, 1969.Name: Harry WynnHometown: East Penn TownshipAge: 64Branch of service: NavyYears served: 1968-1972