Animal Farm
John A. Walker Jr. is a retired Navy captain living in Chapel Hill, N.C. He now steers clear of farm animals.

In the fall of 1969, I was executive officer of a guided missile cruiser. I imagined that by the spring of 1970 I would command my own destroyer. Instead, I ended up commanding a bunch of farm animals. Here’s how it happened.

When I got a call that the admiral had “something special” for me to do in Vietnam, it didn’t sound good. After I arrived at naval headquarters in Saigon, the captain told me about an operational problem with the Vietnamese navy. Because the pay was low, Vietnamese men didn’t have the income they needed to support their families. We had to provide additional family support so the men could stay on the ships. “That makes good sense,” I said.

Then the captain told me a local commander had established a program of animal husbandry. “Huh?” I asked. “Pigs and chickens,” he said. “The families take care of them until they can eat some, sell some, and buy more baby chicks.” 

After a minute or two of my stammering to convince the captain that a city boy from Philadelphia was no expert on farm life, the captain cut me off. “Glad you like it!” he said. “Now go get started.”

When I reached my office to check our resources, I found that we had one commander (me), one yeoman, one chair, one desk, one typewriter, and one telephone. I used the telephone to call the captain. “Do we have anyone who knows something about animal husbandry? What about money to buy the initial supplies?” He said, “Well, John, those are the first things you’re gonna want to work on.”

We put out a general message to commands in Vietnam, and — to our surprise and delight — we were inundated with volunteers. The Navy was full of young farm boys who had joined up to see the world; they were getting shot at and thought this project might be a way to avoid that. Plus, it was a chance to use their farming skills and help build something in the country.

The program got off to a good start. Because of the breed of chicks and the way they were cared for, they could mature in 10 weeks. After eight weeks, I ordered my advisors not to check up on the farms anymore — we had to see if the project would work without our intervention. We all sat around and fretted until I couldn’t stand it anymore. 

A bunch of us headed out to where the families lived, but all we saw were empty pens. There were no chickens in them — at all. “Oh, no,” I thought. Disaster. When we entered one of the houses to have a little food and drink, as was the custom, it was a tremendous strain to stay polite. 

Finally, I said to the head of the family, “How are the chickens?” 

“Very tasty! Very tasty!” was the worrisome response.

“Did you eat all the chickens?” I hesitantly asked. 

“Oh no, there are some still left,” he said. “We built extra pens in the back for them, and we sold some. Because people liked it, they bought some from us. And we have enough money for 200 more chickens.” 

Smiling broadly, he handed me a pile of cash from the chicken sales.

At the end of the year, we had 100 “Pigs and Chickens” people working all over the country. Not one of them was ever hurt by hostile fire, though there are no official records of pecking injuries.