Waldo County Democrats celebrated their connections with Veterans at WCDC’s monthly meeting on November 12, the day after Veterans Day 2023. We are posting those remembrances here in their honor.
Sisters Susan Conard of Northport and Gianne Conard of Belfast remembered their parents, George and Carolyn Conard, for their war time service. Their father was a lieutenant in the Navy, responsible for ship repair in the Admiralty Islands. Their mother was a member of the Navy Waves, intercepting and decoding messages from Washington DC with a select contingent of college graduates (aka Code Girls).
Philo Hutcheson of Islesboro noted that his father graduated from West Point in 1950 and served 21 years, including Vietnam where his helicopter was shot up in mid-flight by a sniper, a close call. He always reminded Philo of the importance of the Constitution and the rule of law; his motto was Duty, Honor, Country. Leaders came and went as far as he was concerned, but the Constitution was enduring.
Rep. Jan Dodge of Belfast shared that father, Julian S. Dodge, was a WWII veteran and a Staff Sergeant with the 224th Aviation Medical Dispensary Unit of the Army Air Corps and served as a surgical technician in North Africa, India and Okinawa.
Valerie Tate, also of Belfast, said that her father-in-law William C. Arms served for 20 years in the Army, the last few years in the Reserves. He was a veteran of the Korean War, worked in Army Intelligence, and became an Arabic linguist after studying at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey. Her mother’s younger brother Jeffrey Starkman served in Vietnam as a procurement specialist.
Sara Salley of Liberty told of her husband Andre Blanchard, who served 20 years in the Air Force as a Russian crypto-linguist. His career included flying in spy planes to listen in on Russian military transmissions and serving as an interpreter on arms control inspection teams traveling to former Soviet Union countries.