Peterson grew up in a poor family in Boaz, Alabama, and when he was 15 years old, his high school was visited by Army National Guard recruiters. Attracted by the benefits of food and clothing, he enlisted and entered active duty at 16, but was sent back to school upon the discovering of his age. After graduating, he returned to the military and was stationed at Fort Bragg as a paratrooper in the XVIII Airborne Corps. Peterson was a member of the United States Army Parachute Team (Golden Knights), and worked with NASA on performing High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) landings.[1]
He was later assigned to the Third United States Army for 30 days, during which he was placed in the 77th and attended Ranger School in Fort Benning, followed by survival training in Antarctica and language studies in California, the latter in which he learned French and Vietnamese. Peterson served in Germany and Okinawa with the 10th and 1st Special Forces Groups respectively before being deployed to Vietnam in 1963 as an advisor and eventually a combat role. He served multiple tours during the Vietnam War until 1972.[1]
Peterson was scheduled to complete his service in 1980 when the government extended it by 13 months. He was ordered to Diego Garcia, where plans were made for Operation Eagle Claw, an effort to free United States embassy members in the Iran hostage crisis.[1][2] However, the mission failed after two aircraft were destroyed during refueling. Peterson compared the debacle and resulting public backlash to that received by American troops withdrawing from Vietnam: "We had to abort, put our tail between our legs, same way we came out of Nam. We just didn't finish the job. [...] We had way too much TV coverage in Nam. The public don't need to know our missions; it messed with intelligence. Nam was a hard time, soldiers condemned for pulling the trigger. Of course, if you waited one second and thought about it, you were dead. We fought for the country, and our own survival. It wasn't pretty. You were there to save your people."[1]
Peterson was married to Sarah Peterson and has three sons, Michael, Brian, and Kevin, and five grandchildren, one of which is Ben Peterson, who competed in ARCA in 2019 and 2024. Sarah died in February 2008.[14] Peterson currently resides in Pulaski, TN.
Motorsports career results
NASCAR
(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)
^"Marine speaks on leading 1980 Iranian rescue mission". Pensacola News Journal. June 30, 2015. Retrieved February 25, 2018. To prevent anyone of knowing about the plan, the helicopters had to be painted inconspicuously below deck with the hangar doors closed because the Russians were using submarines and cruisers to follow them. But the paint was left on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean used as a base of operations of sorts.
