NORWAY – She’s the tall, blond woman wearing a World War II vintage Army dress coat and hat every year for the past several years at the Veterans Day parade.
It’s not her coat.
For at 53, Cynthia Hamlin was just a little girl when her father, Walter, left the service and packed his coat away.
Cynthia found the jacket about nine years ago in the attic, along with pictures and memorabilia.
She’s curious about her dad’s military life. She wants to know where he was stationed, what were some of his adventures and what his ribbons mean.
“He was my champion,” Cynthia said. “He was my whole life. My mother died when I was 9. I was close to him. I’m told that I was ‘Daddy’s girl.'”
“I bring a little piece of him wherever I go,” she said.
Walter died on Dec. 11, 1986, when he was 61.
“Too young,” Cynthia said.
She has three of his jackets and many multicolored ribbons, ribbons that she sees as a key to his past, ribbons that could explain more of her father’s military life.
She brought them to the parade and afterward talked with American Legion Post 82 veteran Robert Sessions to try and understand what some of the ribbons meant.
Cynthia said she knows he was a pilot because he had told her several times when she was young that he would like to go back to Italy and that he would like to fly again.
“He had a Good Conduct Ribbon and one where the bands of color signified different campaigns in the war,” Cynthia said. “He was in the South Pacific and Europe.
“I don’t know a lot about his service record,” she said. “That was my goal today.”
She brought a picture of his boot camp company taken in Spartanburg, S.C., by photographer E.A. Beeks, to the parade on the outside chance that someone might recognize something about it.
“Today, I picked up some information and leads to get information,” said Cynthia, a Waterford selectman and member of the Waterford Historical Society. “Since being involved in the historical society, I’ve become interested in researching some of the pieces of life that I don’t know about.”
She wants to know more about Walter’s military life.
He was her champion.
jsmedley@sunjournal.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.