Scope and Contents

The collection consists of two issues of Shipmate, the magazine of the United States Naval Academy Alumni Association, featuring an article written by Captain Gordon Peterson titled Midshipmen at War: Vietnam - An Untold Story. The article was published in two parts across the two issues.

Biographical / Historical

Captain Gordon I. Peterson enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1963 while attending Wantagh High School in New York. Upon graduation in June 1964, he entered the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in the Class of 1968 with a Bachelor of Science. Following qualification as a naval aviator in 1969, he served with Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron Three (Seawolves) in Vietnam from 1970-1971. He flew more than 500 combat missions in support of U.S. Navy and Vietnamese riverine forces, U.S. Marine Corps advisors, and Navy SEAL special operations units. He then served with Helicopter Combat Support Squadron Four based at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey and for two years was the officer in charge of the commander U.S. Sixth Fleet's helicopter detachment forward deployed to the Mediterranean Sea on the fleet flagship. He received numerous awards including the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

After an assignment teaching naval history at the Naval Academy, Captain Peterson served as the Academy's Deputy Public Affairs Officer and was redesignated a Public Affairs Specialist in 1977. He served in various U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, and joint-service assignments in the Pentagon and Europe, notably as a special assistant for two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as the public affairs officer for the Commander in Chief of U.S. Naval Forces Europe, the Chief of Naval Personnel, and the Commander in Chief of the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. He served as the Department of the Navy's Deputy Chief of Information from 1989-1991.

In his last active-duty assignment, Captain Peterson directed congressional and public affairs for four years at the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, DC - the Navy's largest acquisition activity. Following retirement from the U.S. Navy in 1998, he worked as senior editor of the Navy League's Sea Power magazine and North America editor of Naval Forces magazine. From 2002-2006, he supported the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization program at its headquarters in Washington, DC as a senior technical director with General Dynamics Information Technology. From 2007-2013, he worked as the military legislative assistant for U.S. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia. Captain Peterson continues to write in a freelance capacity.