Peter Ferreri; Decorated Navy Combat Chaplain

Peter J. Ferreri, 81, a decorated Navy combat chaplain during the Vietnam War. A Roman Catholic priest, Ferreri became a Navy chaplain in 1953 and served 20 years, retiring as a captain in 1973 after spending 13 months in Vietnam. He spent half his military years with the Marines, and often described himself as “a hotshot” who frequently conducted Mass under fire. In Vietnam, sniper fire once forced down the helicopter in which he was riding, but the crew repaired it and took off again. Ferreri earned a Bronze Star with a V for valor under enemy fire. Ferreri was also on duty aboard ship during the Cuban missile crisis. He spoke at a Westlake Village dedication last July 3 of the Moving Wall, a traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., recalling how wounded men had died in his arms in Southeast Asia. Ferreri was felled by heart problems a short time later and never fully recovered from a quadruple bypass in September. Despite his official Navy service, Ferreri “as far as he was concerned . . . was a Marine,” said his wife, the former Antoinette Tamburo, whom he married after leaving the priesthood in 1976. Last month, two Marines in dress blues marched into his critical care unit in Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks and awarded him honorary membership in the Marine Corps League and the organization’s Gold National Service Medal, its highest award for a non-Marine. On Monday in Thousand Oaks of heart failure.