A veteran in Vermont in World War II survived a death march. Eighty years later, his hometown says goodbye.

Marlboro – As a long -time volunteer and chairman of the city's new cemetery commission, Marcia Hamilton is preparing for the memorial day every year by helping American flags in the graves of local soldiers. This year this tradition came particularly close to the list with the recent addition to the list: the 102-year-old hero of the Second World War, which she knew as a father.

Richard Henry Hamilton was born on September 28, 1922 in the nearby farmers of Brattleboro. The family only got into the stream after graduating from high school in the high school in 1940.

“Let's not listen, we didn't know where Pearl was Harbor”

The young Vermonter, designed in 1942, joined the Army Air Corps. He served as a radio operator and Gunner on a B-17 bomber called “Destiny's Child” when it flew over Germany on July 20, 1944.

“When the points were seen far back, we assumed that this was our escort,” said Richard.

Instead, the speed spots were 60 enemy fighters who shot a wing out of his plane. Richard saw balls and a resulting blaze killed four crew members before he and four another 18,000 feet were average. Separated from his soldiers, he soon found himself in a wheat field.

“The entire village seemed to be outdoors – with their clubs and pith now,” he recalled in an interview with the Congress library from 2008. “I don't speak German, but I was very suddenly presented with it.”

Richard landed in the prisoner of war in Staag Air IV. He was detained for 10 months and was broadcast on February 6, 1945 for a multi -weekly death march.

“We were only on the go every day,” he said. “There was no goal.”

Instead, it led to Ruhr, frostbite, blowing, body lice and jaundice.

“My feet were black and blue and infected,” he said about his 76th day. “I got a decision that I would no longer go.”

Like a miracle, two Allied soldiers freed him on April 24, 1945.

“When we saw the Statue of Liberty, I could only feel how these immigrants were able to do all their hopes and dreams in the placed,” he said about his return home.

Back in Vermont Richard married his treasure Joyce White and moved to Marlboro, a southeastern city in Vermont, which is known for his former Namensake College and the long -term music festival. There she acquired the skyline restaurant that the couple ran on Hogback Mountain until she retired almost 50 years later in 1994.

Richard was always busy and also worked in the city selection and school authorities as well as a police officer, tax collector and peace judge. He injured the clock in the meeting house chrlle until his hip was replaced at the age of 90. He commanded the Vermont chapter of the American ex-prisoners of the war, and after he had taken a faith during his capture, he appeared Psalm 91 during his capture (his line “He is my refuge and my fortress”, appears on his gravestone), and Gideleon's international distributor of hotels, schools and pasters, school and pastor.

Richard died at home on February 19 at the age of 102 and left four daughters, seven grandchildren and 14 great children.

“He was still active” to take part in men for breakfast, senior citizens -lunch and dinner of the veterans, said his obituary.

The residents of Marlboro thought of him two weeks later when they voted for the creation of a local cemetery commission.

According to state law, the municipal graves are the responsibility of a city administrator or a city council, unless a community is “true to put their public graves under the indictment of the cemetery commissioners”.

Marlboro approved Vermont's latest of this commission in a vote of 308-22 on March 4 with Marcia Hamilton and the volunteer Hollis Burank-Hammarlund and Sally White for his three seats. You are now working on spring cleaning, summer mows, environmentally friendly options all year round and “a user -friendly flow diagram to enforce the public sort of funding”.

“One thing we are planning is a guideline for the standardization of care that every cemetery receives,” said Marcia about the group, which has an annual budget of USD 16,200. “We try to show that a commission is a good idea by having no starting thrust. It will not cost any more money than ever before.”

Marcia and her family received help on the graving service of her father on the King Cemetery. More than 200 friends, neighbors, veterans and first aiders helped with a 21-gun greeting, the game of Taps and a transfer of US Air Force.

Shortly thereafter, Marcia met the footsteps of her late mother by collecting three generations of her family to place American flags on the grave plans of local soldiers. She started with her father and went back as far as Militiatee Elijah Bruce, who was assumed that they fought in the battle of Bennington in 1777 before he died of smallpox in 1835.

Every stone, she knows, has its own story.