Wykstra, James, “Wykstra, James (Interview outline and video), 2011,” Digital Collections, accessed April 4, 2025, https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/document/29648.
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Wykstra, James (Interview outline and video), 2011
James Wykstra was born in 1947 in the town of Cutlerville, Michigan. After graduating from high school, Wykstra felt it was his duty to serve in the military. In August 1966, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserves. Following completion of basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago, Wykstra returned to Cutlerville and regularly attended the reserve meetings until going on active duty in the summer, 1967. Assigned the to destroyer escort U.S.S. Davidson, Wykstra patrolled along the Vietnamese coast and sailed to numerous locales in the Southwest Pacific, including Japan, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and the Philippines.