The United States Navy Memorial Stories of Service Program is honored to announce the December 2018 story of the month has been selected to recognize the service of United States Navy Veteran, Lieutenant Louis Masterson. The United States Navy Memorial Stories of Service Program was privileged to interview Lieutenant Louis Masterson at the Swift Boat Sailors Association Reunion in Washington D.C.

While attending college, Louis Masterson decided to join the Navy before graduation in 1964. Tensions in South East Asia were escalating, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident had already occurred. He entered Officer Candidate School in September of 1964. While at OCS he learned seamanship, tactics, naval military history, and more. "The intention was in roughly 120 days, give us enough information, enough knowledge, to be able to put us on an assignment somewhere.” He received his commission from OCS in February of 1965 and was assigned to the USS Morton DD 948 which was located at San Diego, California. He recalled, “the Morton was an unusual class of destroyer, it was the last gun ship destroyer and obviously there were rockets and guided missiles and other things that were coming out in terms of armament.”  

He spoke fondly of his memories aboard the USS Morton and reflected on his first assignment being in the Gunnery Department. After a year and four months on the USS Morton, he volunteered for service in Vietnam. In June of 1966 he began Swift Boat training in Coronado. Two of his former shipmates from the USS Morton had also moved to Swift Boats months before. He shared, “When you are a young man in the service, you get 

opportunities by age that you do not necessarily get in the civilian work place. I was very much looking forward to the opportunity of having my own boat and own crew to do things that were very important.” In mid-August he and his crew were sent to Da Nang and were the first to operate PCF 75.

Masterson spoke of vivid memories about the first operations of the PCF 75 and shared great detail about the exceptional service of his crew. Following his service in Vietnam he would be assigned to the Joint US Military Mission Aid to Turkey as well as the Caribbean Sea Frontier during the Cold War.

The United States Navy Memorial honors United States Navy Veteran, Lieutenant Louis Masterson, featured within this series titled, Stories of Service, 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.