You can suggest corrections to the following fields for item Peters Jr., Benjamin (Interview outline and video), 2014.

You can also leave general comments or suggestions in the "comments" section. An administrator will review your contribution.

Thank you for taking the time to improve this site!

Please describe the nature of this correction, or anything about it that we should know. Thanks!

Check this box if it is okay for us to contact you about this correction.

An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource

Current data for Contributor

Smither, James (Interviewer)

An entity primarily responsible for making the resource

Current data for Creator

Peters Jr., Benjamin

A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource

Current data for Date

2014-09-10

An account of the resource

Current data for Description

Ben Peters was born in 1941. He grew up on a farm in Holmes County, Florida and enlisted in the Navy in 1958. He served for four years on the carrier USS Bennington. After leaving the Navy, he enlisted in the Army in 1962. He served with the 82nd Airborne Division, then at the Infantry School in Fort Benning, Georgia, then as a helicopter mechanic with the 101st Airborne Division. In mid-1966 he was sent to Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade and served as a helicopter mechanic for the 166th Transportation Detachment at Bien Hoa Air Base. After six months he returned to the United States to go into Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. After completing Officer Candidate School he was sent to West Germany to serve with the 1st Battalion 36th Infantry Regiment 3rd Armored Division for two years. Returning to the U.S. in 1969, he trained to be an adviser to Vietnamese force, but when he redeployed to Vietnam in January 1970 he was sent to the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division as their public relations officer and worked with civilians in the area around Camp Evans. During the siege of Firebase Ripcord in July, he went to the base to take over the battalion's B Company, and was in charge of security as the base was evacuated on July 23. He continued to command B Company until he left Vietnam in December 1970. After the Vietnam War he served at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne Division, at Fort Rucker, Alabama as a flight operations officer, in Athens, Greece as noncommissioned officer in charge of a nuclear weapons storage site, and then at Cairns Army Airfield, Alabama as a flight operations chief until he left the Army in 1975.

A related resource from which the described resource is derived

Current data for Source

Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)