PETER ASARO • VIETNAM WAR
Peter Asaro, 72
Gloucester, MA
Born: 3/29/1953
Born/Raised: Gloucester
Service: US Navy
Stationed: USS America, USS Nimitz
Attack Squadron – NAS Oceana,
VA-35 “Black Panthers”
Rank: Petty Officer 3rd Class
Dates of Service: 1972-1976
Raised on “Portagee Hill,” Peter Asaro is the son of fisherman and WWII naval veteran, Peter Asaro and Jean Sonia Asaro. He attended Gloucester High School where he was class president his freshman and sophomore years, was in the ROTC, and from which he graduated in 1971.
He knew, in 1972, that his draft number was coming up, “I was pissed about it because my family was poor and couldn’t send me to college,” so he decided to join the Navy along with its four-year enlistment. The Navy ended up sending him to school to be a cook and then on board the USS America where he worked as a commissary man. That led to becoming an apprentice to the captain’s cook and cooking in the officers’ mess.
At the time, the USS America was operating in an area off North Vietnam called “Yankee Station.” The collection of naval ships stationed there were colloquially referred to as the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, but this was not the deck shoes and polo shirt crowd. “It was like living at an airport – controlled chaos.” It was from these flight decks that flight missions were being launched over Vietnam. “It was really noisy all the time and there was lots of tension on the boat.”
There were 5000 men aboard the America, but Peter was primarily assigned to work directly with the officers and pilots as a steward. The upside of this assignment was that he was billeted in the officers’ quarters instead of one of the 300-men bunks.
In 1974 the USS America was reassigned to the Mediterranean and in 1975, Peter was reassigned to the newly commissioned nuclear carrier, USS Nimitz becoming a “plank owner” as an original crew member. Peter left the Navy at the end of his enlistment and returned home to study food science at the North Shore Technical Institute. In 1985 he met and married Deborah Chernin and the pair would be married 32 years until her death in 2017.
Save for a substantial stretch of time living in Kona, Hawaii from 1983-2007, Peter made a career out of working at a who’s who of Gloucester bars and restaurants: The Legion, Old Timers, Pratty’s, AmVets, VFW, The Elks, Latitude 43, The Seaport Grille. He returned to Gloucester to help care for his father who died in 2013 at 93. Retired now, he volunteers with the Salvation Army and Meals on Wheels.