Once a Marine, always a Marine
Elderly Korean War veteran’s dearest wish is granted with gift of full dress uniform
Normand Dupras is a proud Korean War veteran who dreamed of one day going to his eternal rest wearing his full dress Marine uniform.
There was just one problem. He didn’t have one – until yesterday.
The fledgling Veterans Memorial Museum of Woonsocket and its founder, Glenn Dusablon, donated a new uniform to Dupras after learning of his plight over a month ago. Dusablon delivered the slick-looking duds to Dupras, 86, in the community room of the Dighton Nursing Center, where he lives.
“This is a big, big day for me – one of the biggest days I have ever had, to tell the truth” said Dupras, his full head of wispy, white hair showing beneath his new Marine cap.
Family members and a few veteran friends around Dupras’ age looked on and applauded as he triumphantly modeled the uniform, shooting a thumbs-up and saluting for the photographers who arrived to capture the moment.
“I’m very excited for him,” said his granddaughter, Donna Silva of Swansea. “He’s very, very proud of being a Marine. He’ll tell you, ‘I’m a Marine. I’m a Marine.’ It’s really one of his proudest accomplishments, having been a Marine.”
Silva said her grandfather has been diagnosed with dementia, but he’s otherwise healthy. Still, she says his recollection of events in the distant past is quite lucid and he talks often of his exploits in battle.
Dupras served in the Korean War from 1948-1950 and was discharged with a Purple Heart after landing in a military hospital with grenade shrapnel in his back. Dupras said he lost track of his military gear after being sent home from the hospital.
For years, she said, Dupras has talked about getting a replacement for his missing uniform. She remembers the subject coming up when her daughter gave a presentation about the Korean War in school based on an interview with Dupras – when she was 13. She’s in her 20s now.
“It’s come up in conversations many times,” she said. “We always wondered what happened to his uniform.”
Dupras thinks his uniform disappeared at the hospital. “They took it,” he says. As Dusablon handed the crisp replacement to Dupras, the former soldier said it “brings back so many memories.”
“Some were good, but some of them were real bad,” he said.
The Swansea native said he served in the Korean War at a time and place “when it was real hot” – and he wasn’t talking about the weather. He means it was a hostile situation with very active enemy combatants.
So how does a military veteran living in a rurally situated nursing home get hooked up with a veterans museum 40 miles away in Woonsocket to get a new uniform?
Silva said it started with her cousin, Melinda Grocott and her boyfriend, Rodney Santos of Exeter. Santos is a Navy veteran who heard about her grandfather’s uniform dilemma and decided to do his best to rectify the situation.
Santos started making calls and eventually touched base with a volunteer at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Providence, according to Grocott.
Dusablon said he got a call from hospital volunteer Donna Rizzoli at the end of June asking if the Veterans Memorial Museum could supply a uniform for Dupras.
“You can’t ignore a request like that,” says Dusablon.
He says fulfilling the request is in keeping with the museum’s mission of “preserving the history and honoring the service” of war veterans.
Alongtime collector of military memorabilia, Dusablon reached an agreement to utilize space owned by the American French Genealogical Society and opened its doors at 78 Earl St. in Woonsocket for the first time on Veterans Day in 2015. The cavernous space is chock full of armaments, field gear, photographs and, yes, uniforms, from every American conflict from the Civil War to modern-day hostilities Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I was hoping it was something we could get out of our own stuff,” said Dusablon. “But when I got the measurements for the uniform, that’s when we went out shopping.”
Dusablon concluded the only way he was going to find a uniform in a large size would be to purchase one new. As the founder of a startup non-profit museum, however, he had to do something else first: raise about $400.
For that, Dusablon turned to Facebook. It didn’t take long for donors from all over to respond when he used the digital platform to tell Dupras’ touching story.
“The next thing you know a guy from New York sent a check, then a guy from Florida, then a guy from Massachusetts,” said Dusablon. “Soon after some local people joined in. I’m just glad we were able to do it.”
Silva found out the hunt for her grandfather’s uniform was successful from the administrator of the nursing home.
“I was surprised when I got that call that they had actually got one,” she said.
Dupras said he hasn’t changed his mind about being buried in the uniform when that day comes. But first he’s going to enjoy wearing it for a while in a situation that’s not so hot.
“I feel good,” he said. “I don’t think I’d sign up again, though.”