SYRACUSE — For the past decade, Bill Pressler has been able to sit in his sun room, feel the breeze on his face and watch the pontoon boats troll up the channel toward Syracuse Lake.

Sometimes he’ll even untether his own pontoon and take his wife of 42 years out on a breakfast cruise of Lake Wawasee.

“I guess after 23 and a half years in the Navy,” Pressler said, “ I just had to be back on the water.”

Pressler, 66, was born and raised in Elkhart and had a tough family life and struggled with his studies. He eventually dropped out of high school during his sophomore year and enlisted into the U.S. Navy on his 17th birthday, Dec. 21, 1962. Five days later he was on a plane bound for the Naval Training Station in San Diego. Pressler had never traveled farther than Chicago before that.

“I was in a hurry to join the Navy,” Pressler said. “I really wanted to get away from home. Boot camp was hard for me because I was so young and didn’t know what to expect. I was scared a lot.

“In boot camp they’re always hollering at you. You can’t do nothing right until about graduation time. Then you’re perfect.”

‘Worked a lot’

After his initial three-month introduction to military life, Pressler was stationed at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Fla., along with his older brother. Pressler also had two younger brothers.

Pressler was trained to be an aviation jet mechanic, but spent most of his year in Jacksonville directing traffic as aircraft taxied on the runways, refueling planes and working in the mess hall.

“I worked a lot,” Pressler said, “but there wasn’t much else to do there … except go drink.”

In 1964 Pressler was assigned to his first ship, the USS Nicholas, DD-449, a destroyer stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. That ship was essentially his home for nearly the next four years as it escorted aircraft carriers and other vessels throughout the Western PAC, otherwise known as the Pacific Ocean.

After his assignment, Pressler told his commanding officers he still wanted to be a jet mechanic. He was told, “No way,” and was informed that destroyers don’t carry aircraft. He would have to settle for boatswain mate, a jack-of-all-trades type position.

“Actually, I loved it,” Pressler said. “I learned to paint real good in the Navy.”

The USS Nicholas took Pressler to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia and the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam.

But perhaps his most memorable moment on the vessel came when he was walking on deck during a storm (against orders) and was nearly washed overboard. He was actually hanging by one hand over the side of the ship.

“I was hanging on for dear life,” Pressler said. “If I had let go I would have been a goner.”

Eventually he was pulled to safety. He said he was scared to go back on the deck for at least a week.

“It woke me up,” Pressler said. “It only takes one time to learn your lesson.”

Brown water navy

In 1967 Pressler was sent back to Vietnam as part of the “brown water navy,” that would run boats up and down the inland rivers. His first year in country Pressler would mostly escort supply boats, running ahead of them looking for water mines. Some days he would see children on shore detonating the mines, setting off massive explosions of water by touching two wires together.

Most of Pressler’s trips were up to Hue City and back, about 9 clicks that on a good day would take about an hour.

“That’s if you weren’t under fire,” Pressler remembered. “About nine times out of 10 you were under fire at some point along the way.”

In all, Pressler spent nearly 2½ years in Vietnam. During the Tet offensive in 1968, a pocket of Marines was pinned down by heavy fire near the beach in Hue. Pressler was among those who took his boat up the river to help get them out.

“We got up there and the first person aboard was my younger brother,” Pressler said. “Seeing him gave me a weird feeling through my body. It scared the hell out of me. I didn’t even know he was in the service.”

Within a month Pressler pulled all the strings he could and was able to have his younger brother sent out of there. The main reason Pressler volunteered for Vietnam, he explained, was so his brothers wouldn’t have to go.

During his second tour of Vietnam in the early 1970s, Pressler kept to the brown waters as he ran the rivers of the Mekong Delta with a Vietnamese boat crew. One night the crew went AWOL as Pressler was sleeping. He woke up in complete silence and darkness.

“That was scary,” Pressler said. “I didn’t know where we were in the middle of that delta. Luckily I got us turned around and we made it back. But I was scared.”

A full career

While home in Elkhart on leave before going to his first tour of Vietnam, Pressler met a young lady on a blind date. They hit it off and she would write him a letter every day he was in Vietnam.

Bill and Becky Pressler would marry in 1969. A year later their first daughter was born, followed by the birth of their second daughter a couple years later.

Following Bill’s second tour in Vietnam, the Pressler family followed him throughout the remainder of his naval career, living in San Diego, Japan and Panama when Bill would escort American ships through the canal with his gunboat.

Finally, in 1985, after more than 23 years in the Navy, Pressler was medically discharged from the service following a motorcycle accident he had while in Panama. He then joined his family back in Nappanee where they had bought a house.

Pressler’s daughters graduated from NorthWood High School and still live in the area. He would eventually start his own painting business before his health forced him to retire.

The service wasn’t easy on Pressler. Besides his motorcycle injuries, Pressler says he suffers from the effects of exposure to Agent Orange and is a recovering alcoholic. He says he hasn’t had a drink since 1985.

“In my opinion Vietnam was all about politics and we didn’t need to be over there,” Pressler said. “When I came back I would get spit on in the airports, but I always felt I was treated all right here in Indiana.

“I’m glad I did my time in the service,” Pressler added. “If I had it to do over again, I would.”