JOSEPH "MUNZA" CATANIA • VIETNAM WAR
Joseph “Munza” Catania, 77
Gloucester, MA
Born 7/10/1948
Born/Raised: Gloucester, MA
Service: US Navy, USS Epperson & Mobile Riverine Forces
Rank: Seaman
Dates of Service: 1967-1971
Joseph “Munza” Catania volunteered for the Navy in June of 1967 as he watched his friends getting drafted. Following his graduation from Gloucester High, he headed to US Naval training at Great Lakes, Illinois. His parents, Gloucester fisherman Michael and Sarah Catania weren’t thrilled with the prospect of his joining the Navy, but “I wanted to decide where I was going to go.”
His first assignment was as a bosun aboard the destroyer USS Epperson off Vietnam. The ship spent two months on the gun line north of the DMZ, two months as fire support below the DMZ and two months as a plane guard in South Vietnamese waters. On his return to their home base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Joe asked for a transfer to the Riverine Forces, river patrol boats that were deployed in the myriad waterways of the Mekong Delta. Five months of training in Vallejo, CA, and two weeks of intensive Vietnamese language training later, he and 57 other sailors were shipped back to Naval Base Bien Tuy. Three and a half months there, then a posting to Nha-Ba for another three and a half months and finally a posting in Saigon teaching English to Vietnamese soldiers. While on the PBRs he said, “I never took off my flak jacket.”
He returned stateside as a member of the Admiral’s staff at Quonset Point Naval Air Station in Rhode Island. After three years, nine months and 23 days, he left the Navy in 1971 and headed back to Gloucester and a career as a fisherman. He fished aboard the F/V Santa Maria and Virginia Surf. “I had a good bachelorhood, plenty of money.” After he “waited til the right one came along” at 33, he met Debbie (Ranta) at Little Earl’s disco and married in June 1981. They’ve been married for 44 years, have one daughter, Johanna Catania and two grandkids.
After hanging up his fishing boots, he went to work at Cyrk for a while and while watching buses pass by while hanging out at the St. Peter’s Club, he thought he might like to be a bus driver. Bob Ryan encouraged him to apply and Joe drove for CATA for 26 years before fully retiring.