Fighting for Repose: Memoir of a Vietnam Veteran

By Harry V. Peterson

Fighting for Repose is a gripping, suspenseful, intense true-story account of Harry Peterson’s service in Vietnam onboard the Navy hospital ship, USS Repose (AH-16).

As a nineteen-year-old electrician working in the bowels of the 450-feet ship, he traversed Da Nang’s coast along the demilitarized zone, with his ship admitting and caring for critically wounded American servicemen by the hundreds.

In his foreword, Alvin J. Hower, author of No Greater Service: A Peace Corps Photo Memoir, writes, “Harry Peterson’s story reminds me of Forrest Gump! At an early age, Harry, like Forrest, is deemed a slow learner (but with a bad knee not leg), was bullied, had a love interest that was possibly involved in drugs in one way or another, and Harry was sent to Vietnam. But, like Forrest, Harry is an endearing character that always did the right thing.”

Full of life lessons on survival and laced with insights on enduring war, PTSD, and dyslexia (that was not diagnosed until he was in his 60s), this memoir will inspire you to always do your best to persevere and follow your moral compass.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Oct 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781489738141

Harry V. Peterson

Harry V. Peterson was third in his high school class of approximately 600 students, (third from the bottom that is), but through grit, patience, and persistence rose to become a petty officer third-class electrician mate, earned a BS degree in Engineering, commissioned Naval officer, and resigned his commission as full lieutenant in 1979. He reached the pinnacle of his careers as chief engineer, associate hospital administrator, and owner of the New River Construction. A licensed private pilot and open water master diver, Harry retired in 2010, and lives with his wife Lari in Florida. This is his first book.

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Copyright © 2021 Harry V. Peterson.

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Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Editors:

Prima Guipo Hower

and

Briccio Jaud Baynosa, Ph.D.

Cover Concept Design by Prima Guipo Hower

Oil on Canvass by Arnel Artus

USS Repose (AH-16)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-3813-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-3812-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-3814-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021918189

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 10/11/2021

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgment

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 Betrayed

Chapter 3 Treasure Island

Chapter 4 Flight to Vietnam

Chapter 5 Anchors Away on USS Repose (AH-16)

Chapter 6 Life in the Hole

Chapter 7 I Killed An American Soldier

Chapter 8 Horrors on the Flight Deck

Chapter 9 The Crow

Chapter 10 Surgery from Hell

Chapter 11 I Lost the Ship’s Anchor

Chapter 12 I Stopped a Rapist

Chapter 13 I Took a Knife to a Gun Fight

Chapter 14 I Swam in Agent Orange

Chapter 15 I Killed with Knife and Gun

Chapter 16 Waiting to Die

Chapter 17 Shunned and Spit On

Chapter 18 A Murder too Close to Home

Chapter 19 Shall We Dance?

Chapter 20 Life after College

Chapter 21 A Tough Confession by the Military

Chapter 22 I Saved Seven Lives

Chapter 23 Discovering I Had PTSD

Chapter 24 Living with PTSD

Chapter 25 Tragedy in Marriage

Chapter 26 My Life Now

Postscript

Dedication

I dedicate this book

to my sister Ann

her husband Tom

and my wife Lari.

Acknowledgment

To my sister Ann and my brother-in-law Tom, who stood by me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week without question, thank you. You both supported me financially without hesitation and without asking for a penny back. You helped me become closer to God and to understand the true meaning of why we are on this earth. I would be floundering in life without you, and Fighting for USS Repose (AH-16) would have never been written. You have become a mentor for me in rebuilding my life. God bless you both.

To my wife, Lari, who gave me the encouragement and the strength to complete this book, goes my profound gratitude. She did all the hard and tedious legwork; without her final shot of adrenalin, I would not have found the energy to get my book published. God bless her; I love her to pieces. She is my rock!

To Arnel Artus for the beautiful oil painting of USS Repose (AH-16) on the cover.

To our friend Joey Omila, this book would have languished as a manuscript in my computer without your help in finding someone like Prima Guipo Hower to help with publishing it.

Sometimes in life, but not very often, someone does something for you that go above and beyond being a normal Christian. Then it becomes hard to find words for how much you appreciate everything they have done. I’m truly lost for words. Prima, your hard work, and rewrites have touched my heart forever. You have made my life worthwhile. You have made me cry. Thank you too for finding your co-editor Briccio Baynosa. (You have earned your wings).

To all of you, I am truly grateful.

Foreword

Harry Peterson and I served our country when the United States of America was embroiled in a very tumultuous, unpopular Vietnam War. Harry was an electrician on the hospital ship USS Repose (AH-16) docked in Subic Bay, Philippines, for general maintenance in May 1969. In the same time period, I arrived at the Manila International Airport to temporarily replace two professors teaching Economics at Notre Dame of Dadiangas College in General Santos City, Mindanao so they could pursue their master’s degrees. Our life experiences – Harry as a soldier and I as a Peace Corps Volunteer - could not have been more different. But we both did the same thing – write a book - to share our story, hoping we could positively impact other lives.

Harry Peterson had so many life-changing experiences that his story reminds me of Forrest Gump! At an early age, Harry, like Forrest, is deemed a slow learner (but with a bad knee not leg), was bullied, had a love interest that was possibly involved in drugs in one way or another, and was sent to Vietnam. But, like Forrest, Harry is an endearing character that always did the right thing. Sometimes he was punished for it, but he often received a reward for it in the end. His positive attitude pulled him through many harrowing encounters that could have killed him. A person with less faith in his God would have given up when thoughts of ending it all entered his head. But he kept fighting and lived through it. Along the way, he saved lives and helped so many people without looking for a reward. Harry did all these when he was all of nineteen years old!

Harry is a patient man, persistent and never gives up. Performing his duties well at USS Repose (AH-16) hospital ship and diligently studying to pass his exams, his persistence awarded him a Crow. He became Petty Officer 3rd Class Electrician Mate. After his honorable discharge he earned an engineering degree and a commission at the Navy Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode Island, climbed the top rungs of the corporate ladder, and successfully established his construction company.

When the Vietnam War ended, he thought his ordeal would also end, but it only intensified. He continued to fight the demons of the war in his head, went through two failed marriages. Thankfully he sought the help of the Veteran’s Administration (VA) hospital to deal with his diagnosis of PTSD and dyslexia when he was in his 60s. No one I have met is an authority in these two debilitating afflictions other than Harry. He experienced it first hand and came through with flying colors, a testimony to his persistence and resilience. And just when he was feeling alone and lost, he met the love of his life in the person of Lari Judalena, a Filipina, just like my wife.

Fighting for Repose is a compelling book and hard to put down. I was always wondering what is going to happen next. It is well written and easy to read, offering many life lessons, including surviving PTSD and Dyslexia.

All his life, Harry fought for what he believes in. I did too. As a Peace Corps volunteer, I thought I had it bad. I helped find solutions (with relative success) to malnutrition, cleft palates, and abject poverty among the children and the indigenous people in the underserved communities of the Philippines. Sure I encountered culture shock, amoebic dysentery, fell off a weapons carrier and other challenges, but my Peace Corps stint was a cakewalk compared to Harry’s life as a soldier. After you read Harry’s book, you will agree with me that Fighting for USS Repose (AH-16) itself is a metaphor for Harry fighting for his own life.

Alvin J. Hower, Peace Corps Volunteer

Author, No Greater Service

(A Peace Corps Memoir, Philippines 1969-1974)

Warren, Rhode Island 2021

Introduction

I am a proud Vietnam Veteran who served honorably on a Naval hospital ship called USS Repose (AH-16). It was built for the United States Navy (USN) during World War II, a haven class of hospital ships. USS Repose (AH-16) was among the first ships to be able to receive casualties directly by helicopter and were the first fully air conditioned ships in the US Navy. Constructed in 1943 and launched in August 8, 1944, USS Repose (AH-16) had a bed capacity of 750 and a complement of 564, it was active from 1945 and served as a US Navy hospital ship in Vietnam from October 1965 to May 1970. It was sold for scrap in 1975.

Because of the ship’s age, the majority of the electric systems required a lot of maintenance forcing the men in the Electrical division to work seven days a week. There are literally hundreds of electric motors of all sizes on board the ship. There were times when it felt like we were replacing electrical motors on a daily basis.

Depending upon the number of available electricians, general work routine for each electrician was standing four hours on watch with four hours off or, 8 hours off between watches when there is available manpower. Between standing watches each electrician would be given work orders to take care of. This meant, you would have to find time between work orders to fit in eating, sleeping and personal things such as writing letters, showers, etc.

My original purpose of publishing this book was to tell my kids and their children what life was like for me in detail. I have never written a book or a long story for one main reason: I am dyslexic. Going to school was always very challenging. I was labeled that I had a learning disorder. As an adult, I was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

This book was compiled while I was going through therapy with PTSD at the Veterans Administration center. My psychiatrist advised me to recall and share with him painful experiences that were triggers of PTSD. I found that it was easier for me to write my thoughts than verbalize them. Before each session, I would type up a paragraph about anything that I did in Vietnam that gave me nightmares or flashbacks. I would hand the typed paragraphs to the therapist. Before he would finish reading it, I would be crying uncontrollably. The therapist would talk about what he read, and I would acknowledge his comments the best I could. These notes then became the basis for Fighting for USS Repose (AH-16).

It took the help of my sister to rewrite each page so that it made sense. I kept telling my sister that she has earned her Angel Wings for all her help and everything else that she has done for me. After I finished the rough copy of my book, then the hard part began. I was editing it over and over till I did not care if I finished it or not.

At that point, my current wife Lari, the love of my life, stepped up to the plate, encouraging and helping me finish the book. She took control of everything, making it possible for me to publish.

I owe so much to these women who have become the most important people in my life. God Bless them both.

Chapter 1

The Beginning

I graduated third in my high school class of approximately 600 students; third from the bottom, that is. My elder brother Bobby, who was my closest friend died from cancer. I was five years old at the time and was never told that seven-year-old Bobby died; he was just gone! If that was not enough, all my life, I suffered from dyslexia undiagnosed until I was in my sixties during one of my therapy sessions for PTSD. My family, teachers, classmates, and even my friends implied that I was a slow learner, euphemism for stupid, a charitable way of masking what they really meant. I knew that my future would be challenging. I needed to find a way not just to survive but also to show everyone that I am not stupid or the problem dumb kid as everyone believed me to be!

It all started in the 1950s. My parents moved the family from a small farm town in Iowa into a lovely large two-story brick house in Nebraska’s conservative college town. Our family consisted of my two older brothers Bobby and John, my younger sister Ann, and me. Our father, John Peterson, Sr. had an excellent job as a detail man working for a large drug company. He had fought in WW2 as a naval officer aboard several different ships. He continued in the Naval Reserves after the war and advanced quickly to the rank of Captain and commanded the local Navy Training Center. Dad was respected in the community for his involvement in the Navy, occupation as a detail man with a major pharmaceutical company and owning 160 acres farm. My mother, Margaret, became a full-time stay home wife and took care of the house and kids. By those standards, we were a middle-class family with two cars, a boat, a lovely home, and a bundle of troubles waiting to explode.

My early years: five to sixteen years old were extremely hard for me because of my father’s stringent rules, and especially his short temper. And then there’s Bobby and his cancer. My older brother Bobby and I shared a bedroom and slept together in a queen-size bed. We had a special ceremony whenever Bobby would get a new pair of Buster Brown shoes. He would clean and polish his old pair of Buster Brown shoes just for me. Although they were hand-me-down, they always made me feel special. We always looked forward to the opportunity for Bobby to get a new pair of Buster Brown shoes, and I would get his old ones.

Even at that young age, I started noticing that Bobby would frequently be gone, but I was never told where he was or why he was gone. One evening Bobby left the bedroom, and after he did not come back, I went looking for him. I walked into the living room and saw Dad carrying Bobby to the front door with Mom sending them off. I asked what was going on. Dad said we would be back and for me to go back to bed. Bobby and I made eye contact. That would be the last time I ever saw him.

Weeks later, I checked the special place where we both kept our Buster Brown shoes in the closet. I was hoping that when he returned home we would be able to perform another Buster Brown shoes ceremony. To my dismay, both of our pairs of shoes were missing! I looked everywhere for those shoes but could not find them. I got so worried and scared that maybe I lost them.

Several years later on Memorial Day, a day in the United States when the fallen soldiers are honored and celebrated, we were at the family gravesite with my grandmother standing next to me. She very quietly grabbed my hand and pointed to a gravesite. I read the inscription on the headstone. It was Bobby’s grave. My stomach churned and my disposition just sank to an all-time low. Then I became worried about Ann, my younger sister, because she had no idea what has happened to Bobby. It was not until I became an adult that I figured out what happened to our Buster Brown shoes. Bobby was probably buried in them. My mother probably did not want the extra shoes around to remind her of Bobby. Our parents never told Ann or me what happened to Bobby or why he never came back the last time I saw him being carried out of the house by dad.

However, things were about to change for me drastically just before I graduated from senior high school. By the time I got to high school, I was a skinny, pimple-faced, small-framed unpopular kid with inferior grades and an even more flawed personality. I was bullied. At first the bullying was just minor things. But later, it escalated into more serious fighting with a motorcycle gang leader. Most importantly, I had no girlfriends.

At the beginning of 11th grade, things started to change for me. In one of my classes, I sat in the front row near the door. About halfway through the year, a beautiful girl with long