Interviewed by:

Xena DeMontigny and Amanda Baden

"I saw things at 19 that no one should see in their entire lives."

~ Peter Richenburg

Peter Richenburg's Story:

Mr. Richenburg was born on November 29th, 1947. In November of 1965, he enlisted himself into the Navy when he was young to satisfy a curiosity of the world. His father had instilled upon him and his siblings that serving your country was important. What he didn't know, was that he would actually be sent out to war. He knew how to navigate, and therefore was chosen to be on the Riverine Force in the Mekong River, in the Delta Region of Vietnam during the war.

In Vietnam, Mr. Richenburg was a patrol officer on a PBR, which meant he and his comrades would look for boats on the river that were suspect of carrying supplies to the front. Most supplies were moved at night, and so he didn't get many suspicious boats anyways. But at one point, there was a boat in the evening that looked a bit suspicious, and upon further investigation, it was actually a Vietnamese hospital boat - with all American equipment. So they actually brought these people to a CIA base stationed down the river. So that was an interesting thing he told us about.

Mr. Richenburg was only in combat about four times, and in his downtime they slept a lot, he made models, did some drawing, and was actually an illustrator for a newspaper on the main ship. He'd also write letters to home, but mostly he says he rested. A good quote that he used was actually one from Ralph Waldo Emerson, that he had used to describe war: "Times of interminable boredom, punctuated by periods of intense terror."

After the war, he had an new-found want to heighten his education, and went on to become a high-school teacher. He said that the biggest thing he learned from his time in the Navy, was that "the world doesn't owe me a living, life is basically what you put into it. [...] I think it strengthened my values, more than anything."