LITCHFIELD – Marvin Joseph Krupinsky, 76, Colonel, United States Army (Retired), died on Thursday, March 3, at his home on Woodbury Pond in Litchfield, after a three-year battle with cancer.

He was born in Claremont, N.H. in 1928, and grew up in Springfield, Vt., the son of Joseph L. Krupinsky and Edna Whitcomb Krupinsky.

He graduated from Springfield High School, where he played football as halfback and then quarterback. He played basketball and was on the ski team. He also played centerfield for three years on the Springfield High School baseball team, including the year they won the State Championship in 1944. He was born a Red Sox fan and remained one throughout his life.

He attended Norwich University for one year, before Congressional appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1947. While at West Point, he played baseball on the Plebe and West Point Team. He was captain of the Ski Team and entered jumping competitions around New England. He graduated in 1951, and was commissioned to the Corps of Engineers.

Among the highlights of his career, he served as platoon leader, then Company Commander for Company B of the 1343rd Engineer Combat Battalion in Korea, including the bloody Punch Bowl battle area. He earned the Bronze Star Medal for “meritorious achievement in ground operations against the enemy.” In Vietnam, he served at MACV Headquarters in Saigon and, in his second tour of duty, as commander of the 809th Engineer Combat Battalion in Northern Thailand, building roads and other infrastructure.

His career included numerous stints as a student, including a master’s degree in mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a master’s degree in civil engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduate diplomas from the Army Command and General Staff College and the Naval War College. He also served in teaching posts in the Mathematics Department at West Point and at the Naval War College, Newport, R.I.

Other notable assignments included engineer officer with the Army Security Agency, which maintained posts in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, for surveillance of the Soviets during the height of the Cold War. In Europe, he served as deputy commander, 130th Engineer Brigade in Hanau, Germany and as community commander in Neu Ulm, Bavaria. His final military assignment before retirement in 1979, was senior Army advisor to the Maine National Guard.

His decorations and awards include the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Army Commendation Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, the Bronze Star and the Meritorious Service Medal.

In his post-retirement career, he taught mathematics at Lyndon State College in Vermont and mathematics and computer science at Westbrook College in Portland. An avid golfer, he was a daily player on his “home course,” Cobbossee Colony in Monmouth, where he hit four holes in one. He was a member of the Central Maine Seniors Golf Association.

His immediate survivors include his wife of 50 years, Jacquelyn Stowell Krupinsky of Litchfield; a daughter, Lisa Krupinsky Paul of San Francisco, Calif.; a son, Steven Krupinsky of Peabody, Mass.; a granddaughter, Aleana Krupinsky, currently attending the University of Maine at Farmington; and his sister, Beverly Krupinsky Paul of Bronx, N.Y.

“And when our work is done, Our course on earth is run, May it be said, well done’ Be thou at peace” From the West Point Alma Mater

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