Scope and Contents

Books, audio captions, VHS tape, CD, and photocopied articles donated by Edwin Oswald. Various books and the VHS tape (River Patrol: The Game Wardens of Vietnam) document the role of the US Navy river patrol boats in Vietnam. The CD (Chet Atkins Plays Back Home Hymns) is an example of the kind of music Oswald and his crew listened to while in Vietnam. The articles in the collection deal with a number of various topics including alcoholism, veterans' adjustment to society after the war, and an article about the music of Chet Atkins by Edwin Oswald. An article, written in Russian, is also included and deals with Russian veterans recovering from alcoholism.

Biographical / Historical

Edwin L. (Larry) Oswald was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1945 and graduated from Benedictine High School in 1963. Oswald held a Navy ROTC scholarship at Rice University and after graduating in 1967, he attended Navy Supply Corps School at Athens, Georgia. In March, 1968, Oswald was assigned to Naval Support Activity (NSA), Saigon, and then as Supply Officer on YRBM-16. He aided in the refitting of the craft in Sasebo, Japan, and accompanied it to its mooring near Chau Duc, where he remained until leaving Vietnam in February 1969. Oswald was assigned to El Toro Naval Base in California, where he was on the security detail for Air Force One. He left the Navy in 1971 with the rank of Lieutenant. Oswald went to the Soviet Union in 1988 as part of a delegation of Vietnam veterans advising on the adjustment of Red Army veterans after the USSR's war in Afghanistan.