Their Story
Remembering Peter Oswald.
Commander Peter G. Oswald, United States Navy, died on August 27, 2002, of injuries sustained during a training exercise in El Salvador, when the rope separated as he fast-roped from a U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. He was 41 years old. Born on March 22, 1961, Pete grew up in Bellingham, Washington, was an Eagle Scout, and graduated from Sehome High School in 1979.
At the United States Naval Academy he majored in ocean engineering, was a three-year letterman in football, and in his senior season was voted to the NCAA Division I-A All-East team as a center. He graduated with the Class of 1984. His first assignment was aboard USS Enhance, an ocean-going minesweeper, where he served in several capacities and eventually as executive officer, conducting minesweeping operations in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War in 1987.
In 1988 he became a Navy SEAL. He served as a platoon commander with SEAL Team Three and deployed to the Middle East during the Persian Gulf War. He went on to serve as a BUD/S instructor, as flag lieutenant to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Command and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, as an Olmsted Scholar at Kyoto University in Japan, and as executive officer at Special Boat Unit 12.
At the time of his death he was commanding Naval Special Warfare Unit Four, based at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, Puerto Rico. Friends who grew up with him said that for all his training, the job he found most challenging and most rewarding was being a father. Pete is survived by his wife, Jennifer, and their three daughters, Sarah, Alicia, and Margaret; his parents, Harold and Dorothy; and his brothers, Stephen and Michael.
