Raunchy Redskins,

I’ve had a number of you ask about Eric Peterson’s passing almost four years ago, so I thought it easiest to do a shotgun email to everyone.

Background Stuff - When I joined HS-6 early in 1967 I went to work in the ASW shop and Eric was one of the first folks that I met. Shortly after meeting, we found out that we both were avid and long-suffering Boston Red Sox fans and we made plans to drive up to Anaheim to see a night game the next time the Sox were in CA. On the drive back down to Chula Vista we were talking about where we grew up in Massachusetts. I’d been born there and had lived there all my life until I went off to college and then to flight training. Eric said that he had lived the early part of his life in NY, but that his father, Larry Peterson, worked for a feed and grain company, had been promoted and had subsequently been moved to the corporate office in Boston from the Waverly, NY store. Later on the company Larry worked for moved into a new building along Route 128 in Waltham. I said that was a real coincidence – my father worked for a feed and grain company named Wirthmore Feeds that was also located in Waltham. Turns out that our fathers had worked for the same company since the end of WWII and knew each other very well.

Helen and I had been married in October, 1966, but she was finishing up nursing school in NJ and didn’t join me in San Diego until June of ’67. Between her arrival in June and our deployment in September both of sets of our parents came for week-long visits between our work-up short cruises. When we deployed, about the only wife that Helen knew was Priscilla Peterson. Maybe a day or two after we deployed, Helen desperately needed someone to talk to, so she called the only person she knew, Priscilla. During the deployment Helen and Priscilla really bonded and remain close friends to this day. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Helen owes her sanity, and both of us our marriage, to the kindness and caring of Priscilla. After leaving HS-6 Eric and I ended up in Pensacola – HT-8 for Eric and VT-3 for me - (good times teaching acrobatics in the T-28) – Phil Fuller was over at VT-1 in T-34s. We saw each other off and on during our tours down there, including celebrating at least one Thanksgiving together. We were kind of geographically separated mid ‘70s to mid ‘80s but kept in touch via family Christmas cards. Once we returned from Portugal in 1983 we saw Eric and Priscilla periodically here in Virginia (Norfolk, DC area and Williamsburg) off and on until just shortly before his death in 2002.

2002 – sometime during the summer of 2002 Helen received a letter from Priscilla saying that Eric was very ill. He had been operated on for intestinal cancer at the Bethesda Naval Hospital around Memorial Day, had suffered some complications, had spent considerable time in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital and was now at home in hospice care. I understand that Eric had been complaining of stomach pain for quite some time but tests kept coming back negative. Doc Hall probably knows a lot more about his diagnosis and illness than I, but basically the cancer was located in the lower small intestine just out of reach of then-current diagnostic tests from either the top or the bottom. I spoke with Priscilla and asked if she minded if I shared Eric’s condition with those of you that I was still contact with. She gave me the green light and I let everyone know about Eric. Helen and I were visiting Williamsburg as part of an antique car tour during the last weekend in October 2002 and by then Eric was too weak to have visitors. Al Fox and Rudy Cartwright were making plans to fly from Texas to VA to see Eric but he died before they could make final arrangements for their visit. After his death, I networked out the arrangements for the early November Memorial service that was going to be held in Williamsburg. Al and Rudy flew in from Texas and Helen and I drove down from Fairfax. We met up with Doc Hall, Rich and Ann Keenan, and Jim Hughes (hope I didn’t miss anyone) at the Memorial service. During an informal get-together at Priscilla’s the night before the Memorial service I had the chance to renew acquaintances with Eric’s parents, Larry and Evelyn, then both in their 90s. Larry inquired about my father who, unfortunately,  had died in December 2000 and we spoke of their work colleagues that I had grown up knowing. Later in the month Jim Hughes and I attended Eric’s burial at Arlington in the midst of a miserable snowstorm. I wrote to some of you at the time that it was absolutely breath taking to stand in the falling snow with absolutely no traffic noise and hear Taps played on a bugle and then echo across the quite cemetery. Since then Helen and I have seen Priscilla off and on – we usually visit Colonial Williamsburg about twice a year - including staying with her for a couple of days sight-seeing in Williamsburg in April of 2005 and then seeing her for dinner when we visited Williamsburg again for Colonial Williamsburg’s annual Veteran’s Day celebration last November. During one of the visits Priscilla told us that she and Eric had been high school sweethearts and that she had never dated anyone else since she first met Eric. Priscilla seems to be doing as well as can be expected and has an active life traveling with Elder Hostel groups and visiting her younger daughter, Kristin, in Hawaii (son-in-law David Kirk is the CO of a Boomer out of Pearl Harbor). Elder daughter, Kathy, is reasonably close by and a teacher. On Memorial Day weekend this year we visited Arlington National Cemetery and took this photo at Eric’s gravesite.