The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
61 WAR HEROES SALUTED
2017 marks several key anniversaries of conflicts
PORTLAND » Sixty-one men and women who served the country in wartime over the past seven decades were honored Thursday with the awarding of Connecticut Veterans War Time Service Medal.
Presentations were made by Sean D. Connolly, the state’s commissioner of Veterans Affairs and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves.
The event, held in the Donald W. Gates auditorium at Portland High School, was organized by state Rep. Christie Carpino, RC romwell.
The medal, which was established by the General Assembly in 2005, is awarded to any Connecticut resident who served in the military in time of war and who now lives in the state.
Among the people recognized were a 96-year-old woman who served in the Army Nurses Corps in World War II, as well as veterans of the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the fallout of the war in Iraq and the rise of so-called Islamic State. Some 145 people, including families, friends and fellow veterans, crowded into the auditorium to be a part of the ceremony.
In addition to Carpino, state Sen. Art Linares, R-Westbrook, Portland First Selectwoman Susan S. Bransfield and Town Clerk Ryan J. Curley also participated in the event. Carpino and her staff had worked to make the ceremony worthy of the men and women who were being honored for their service.
People arriving for the ceremony entered the school through an honor guard of Patriot Guard riders, the volunteer motorcycle
corps that routinely attends ceremonies that honor servicemen and women and first responders. Attendees were welcomed into the auditorium by the 102nd Army Band Brass Quintet.
The ceremony began with the Portland Fire Department’s Color Guard presenting the colors. As the four-member unit stood at attention in the front of the auditorium, the present and former chairman of the town’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Bill Willinsky and Reg Farrington, led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Carpino opened the ceremony by thanking the veterans for their service — and their families for their sacrifices and for keeping “the home front secure.” She said the ceremony had an added significance coming so close to July 4th.
“From the bottom of my heart, we thank you for your service,” Carpino said. “Please know your sacrifices will never be forgotten.”
Connolly said being commissioner of Veteran’s Affairs “is really the greatest honor.” He cited the various anniversaries observed in 2016 and this year that mark significant events in the long and often painful history of American wars of the 20th and 21st centuries.
This year marks 100 years since the United States entered World War I, 67 years since the beginning of the Korean War, and 50 years since the Vietnam war dramatically expanded, Connolly said. Last year marked 25 years since the first Gulf War and 15 years since the attacks of 9/11, which led to the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Both selfless service and sacrifice continue, Connolly said, noting the death last month of Watertown native and sonar technician Ngoc Truong Huynh, who was killed in the collision of the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship off the coast of Japan.
Joined by Carpino and Linares, Connolly went into the well of the auditorium to present the medals as Bransfield and Curley took turns reading off the names of the honorees.
Some of the awards were made posthumously.
The first veteran to receive her medal was Jeanette E. Bailey, a Portland resident who served in the Army Nurse Corps in the closing month of WWII in Europe. Bailey was accompanied by four of her eight children: her sons Jeff, Joe and Mike and daughters Joanne and Rita. Following the ceremony, the petite Bailey recounted her progression as the tide of battle moved relentlessly across Northwest Europe and the ANC treated the casualties created by the fight to cleanse the world of Nazism. Once the war ended in May 1945, Bailey used her off-hours to travel to any number of countries, including England, Ireland, Scotland and Switzerland. Bailey said she couldn’t pick a favorite. “They were all wonderful.”
After the war, Bailey came home and married a doctor from Middletown whom she knew in the Army. They moved to Ohio, where she raised her family before moving back to Portland, where she lives with her son Mike.
Mike said he had to use a subterfuge to get his mother out of the house. If she knew he intended to take her to the ceremony, she would have refused, saying she didn’t deserve the medal, Mike said.
Bailey came from a family of 10 children, eight of whom were boys, Jeff Bailey said. All eight Bailey boys served in the armed forces and one of them was treated at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Naval Hospital.
Years later, his nephew Joe, who was in the Navy, worked in the hospital.
Lola Abbott, who lives in Bar Harbor, Maine, made the trip down to Portland for the ceremony so she could see her son, Alfah Abbott, receive his medal. Alfah Abbott was a submariner who served on board of both fast-attack and ballistic missile submarines.
Another honoree, Louis Alexander Jr., was a Vietnam-era Army veteran who only just missed serving in Vietnam, he said after the ceremony.
Vietnam-era personnel served in the military during the war but did not serve in Vietnam.
A Little Rock, Arkansas, native, Alexander was a junior in college when he was drafted in 1970. Trained as a military policeman, Alexander was at Fort Lewis, Washington, preparing to board a flight to Vietnam, when his orders were changed as the United States withdrew troops from Vietnam as part of President Nixon’s “Vietnamization” program.
Instead of Vietnam, Alexander spent the rest of his time at Fort Polk, Louisiana, which had a reputation as being only marginally better than Vietnam.
Not that it bothered Alexander, however. “I enjoyed my time in the Army,” Alexander said, explaining, “I knew what I was getting into because I was in (Reserve Officer’s Training Corps) in college.”
After he got out of the army, Alexander went back to college to complete his degree in physics. He then worked in the nuclear industry in Arkansas before moving to Connecticut, where he worked for United Nuclear Corp., which made nuclear reactors for the Navy’s submarines.
Alexander said he later moved on to making helicopters for Sikorsky at its Stratford plant.
A professor, Alexander now teaches at Capital Community College and dotes on his four grandchildren and one great-grandchild. “I feel comfortable,” Alexander said. “I don’t feel like I missed anything.”