The United States Navy Memorial Stories of Service Program is honored to announce the August 2020 story of the month has been selected to recognize the service of United States Navy Veteran, Lieutenant Junior Grade Marvin Dietsch. The United States Navy Memorial Stories of Service Program was privileged to interview Lieutenant Junior Grade Marvin Dietsch at the USS William R. Rush DD 714 reunion being held at Harrisburg Pennsylvania in the Fall of 2019.

Marvin Dietsch joined the United States Navy after being inspired by a neighbor who was in college and entering Officer Candidate School. He felt, "this is something I could benefit from and it was, the leadership, the training in the military all impacted my later life."

Upon graduating from high school, he applied for a Navy Scholarship and was accepted to the University of Notre Dame. While at Notre Dame he studied during the school year and spent his summers at sea and served on Destroyers, air training, the aircraft carrier, USS Bennington, and other stations to experience a multitude of career options. He remarked, "I had experience on the bigger ships and smaller ships...it was exposure to different regions in the country and different experiences at sea."

 Two nights before he graduated from the University of Notre Dame with an engineering degree, he was commissioned into the United States Navy. Dietsch received orders to the Engineering Department of the USS William R. Rush DD 714. Lieutenant Junior Grade Dietsch served  on the USS William R. Rush for three years in the Atlantic and Pacific. He remarked, "we were out doing live firing exercises constantly, we ran the wheels off that ship for three years constantly." Having visited numerous ports he shared, "It was the adventure of getting into foreign countries... you got to see the differences in the standards of living.” One fellow shipmate shared during the USS William R. Rush reunion that, Mr. Dietsch was “the best Engineering Officer he served with. He know exactly how to handle the ship and keep the crew safe.”

The United States Navy Memorial honors United States Navy Veteran, Lieutenant Junior Grade Marvin Dietsch, featured within this series titled, Tales from the Navy Log, Story of the Month. Each month, this series honors a Veteran’s story recorded by the Stories of Service Program at the Navy Memorial. To learn more about this story and to explore the Navy Memorial archive, visit the Navy Memorial Stories of Service site at https://www.navymemorial.org/stories-of-service.

To view this interview please visit the USS William R. Rush DD 714 Collection on the Navy Memorial Stories of Service page.