1966 Eric Pregitzer Writes Parents About Military Experience From Presque Isle County Advance and Onaway Outlook August 11, 2016

  
CAPTION: Mr. and Mrs. Penrod Pregitzer received a lengthy letter from their son, Eric, 50 years ago this
week.  Details appeared on the front-page of The Onaway News.  He was a fireman in the U.S. Navy stationed
in Vietnam.  He returned there from a seven-month cruise that took him to Hawaiian Islands, Midway, Taiwan,
Yokasuka, Japan and Long Beach, California.  In March (1966) he received the Vietnam medal for service
and aid in a rescue mission on the cruise.  Erick told his parents they received a distress radio call
from a Free Nation China ship that had been hit by  a Viet Cong PT boat in the Formosa straits.  Eric's ship, 
the U. S. S. O'Brien went to the rescue and brought back 15 men alive and nine dead.  "Everything else
is very dull," he wrote.  Eric went to Coronado for survival training for two weeks; DaNang, Vietnam; and 
July 23 (The day his sister was married in Onaway) he wrote the letter home to his parents.  He was to be 
home May 27, 1967.  He received his Christmas package three months late.

From the The Presque Isle County Advance August 11, 2016 page 7B. 


Retyped by J. Anderson