BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer
David Engebretson Monmouth County native David Engebretson, 72, is his family’s historian, collecting information to send to his children, grandchildren and his brother’s daughters.
He recently acquired replacements of his father’s medals from World War I and his own medals from the Korean War by downloading a form from the Internet called Standard Form 180.
“It’s interesting that you can get this information by just asking for it. And it was sent gratis,” Engebretson said, adding that it took about six months to get the information.
Engebretson served in the Navy for almost four years and was honorably discharged in April 1954. He said he had lost his medals and wanted to replace them so that he could give them to his grandchildren. He received three medals — the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Medal and the Navy Occupations Service Medal — and an honorable discharge button.
“At first I only asked for certain information, but now I would like to get specific information on the six or so ships that I served on, and the dates. I was a mechanic on a DUWK boat, and we were in Malta when there was an earthquake in Assos, Greece. We were one of the rescue ships,” Engebretson said.
He explained that there was also a group of Marines there.
“All of the walls of a prison came down and the Marines had to go in and round up the prison inmates because people were afraid of them. They were able to get all of them and put them to work clearing all of the debris from the roads,” he said.
Engebretson was raised on a farm in Marlboro and now lives in Colts Neck, but his parents came from Norway and settled in Minneapolis. His father, Engmar, was 19 when he came to the United States and served in the Army in 1916. Engmar Engebretson received the World War I Victory Button and the World War I Victory Medal.
The letter Engebretson received from the U.S. Department of Justice states that his father’s residence at the time was Jefferson Barracks, 154th Company, Missouri, and his occupation was soldier. The letter also states that he was born on Sept. 26, 1896, at Horstan, Norway, and entered the United States at New York on June 11, 1916, aboard the vessel Pollenasia. Because of his Army service, he became a naturalized citizen on June 14, 1918, at Eastern District Court in St. Louis, Mo.
“I didn’t know much about my father’s military background. Once in a while he would talk about growing up in Norway,” Engebretson said.
He said his father visited Norway in 1970.
“The local newspaper did an article about him. That’s where I learned the most. He spent 18 months in the Army, but most of the time he was on the base because there was a bad flu epidemic,” he said.
Engebretson said his older brother served in the Merchant Marines.
He has put together a book on the family’s military history. He explained that he was able to get his father’s records because he had his discharge papers from the Army. He noted that even without those documents he would have been able to get the medals by using his father’s Social Security number or any other information he had on hand.
Engebretson, who is listed as a farmer on his discharge papers, is a retired school principal who worked for the Farmingdale and Marlboro school districts. He retired in 1981 and started a commercial and residential alarm company that he ran for 10 years.
He attended grammar school in the Morganville section of Marlboro at a building that had outdoor toilets and a hot air furnace. His parents moved to Monmouth County in 1932 and bought what became their family farm in 1951.
Engebretson married Dorothy Delbasco, whose parents were farmers in the Cheesequake section of Old Bridge. Before retiring, she had been the principal at two schools in Old Bridge.
Engebretson said he was surprised at how easy it was to obtain the medals. Now he plans to send for more in-depth information.
The National Archives and Records Administration is the repository of millions of military personnel, health and medical records of discharged and deceased veterans of all services during the 20th century.
The National Personal Records Center (NPRC) also stores medical treatment records of retirees from all services, as well as records for dependents and other persons treated at naval medical facilities. Information from the record is available upon written request.
Veteran or next-of-kin of a deceased veteran may use www.archives.gov/
research_room/vetrecs/ to order a copy of military records. For all others, the request should be made using Standard Form 180, which includes complete instructions for preparing and submitting requests.