Veterans honored at Penobscot luncheon

Service members recount their varied experiences serving in the military at home and around the world

Vietnam veteran and Army Master Sergeant John Ashmore of Brooksville leads the Pledge of Allegiance at the Penobscot Cafe Veterans' Luncheon. Photo by John Epstein.

By John Epstein

PENOBSCOT–The Penobscot Café transformed its weekly Monday luncheon at the United Methodist Church on Nov. 10 into an occasion to honor many of the veterans who live nearby. 

“It’s the second year in a row that we’ve done this,” said Patty Hutchins, who organizes and cooks the weekly meals with support from the town’s Baptist Church and hands-on help from local volunteers. The Masonic Rising Star Lodge #4 co-sponsored the special event.

Before sitting down to lasagna, garlic bread, salad and apple pie a la mode, 13 men and women, who had served in the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force stood with wives, partners and family members to salute the flag.

John Ashmore, a decorated Army veteran from Brooksville, led the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I left Vietnam five days after the Tet Offensive in February of 1968,” he told The Rising Tide.  He stood in front of a table set up with his many decorations as a staff sergeant in the 18th Engineer Brigade, including a letter of commendation for “gallantry under fire” during the Tet attack. The letter noted that Ashmore had volunteered to unload a helicopter while under heavy mortar fire “[w]ith total disregard for his own personal safety.”

Transferring skills to civilian life

Ashmore, who served in the Maine National Guard for many years, had a long career in construction at Maine’s Department of Transportation, using the skills he learned in the Army building aircraft landing strips. He wasn’t the only veteran at the luncheon able to transition into a civilian career using skills learned in the service.

Navy veteran Jeff Berzinis and his wife Audrey Berzinis. Photo by John Epstein.

Don Loncto decided to join the Army in 1968, where he served for three years in the Military Police.

“They offered me a position as warrant officer at the end of my three years, but I would have had to stay in the Army for six more years,” said Loncto, shaking his head. Instead, he became a police officer in Agawam, Massachusetts for 28 years. He later moved to Maine and worked as a hunting guide.

Daniel Bassett, who also moved to Penobscot from Massachusetts, was in an Air Force intelligence unit in Japan from 1956 to 1960.

“It was four years of peace time,” he said. “We were tracking the Russians, trying to find out what they were doing. But we couldn’t find Sputnik, it was too high up,” he joked.  After leaving the Air Force, Bassett was able to use his skills in electronics and computers for manufacturing company Western Electric as well as school administrations.

Not knowing what was next in life upon graduation from Waterville High School in 1973, Shannon Johnson took a skills test for the U.S. Navy, scoring high in mechanical aptitude.

“I was always good with my hands,” she said.  Johnson went on to break barriers as a woman mechanic in the Navy. “I had long, slender fingers; that helped me reach machine parts that men with thick, stubby fingers couldn’t reach as easily,” she said.

Shannon Johnson, Navy veteran and groundbreaking woman airplane mechanic with her proud daughter Jennifer Austin. Photo by John Epstein.

Johnson said she was the woman working as a mechanic on the base.

“When I went below decks to eat at mess, a sailor objected, but my crew chief said, ‘she’s with us,’” she said.  

After leaving the Navy, Johnson went on to work at Portland International Airport and then Federal Express.

“I’m so proud of my mom,” said Johnson’s daughter, Jennifer Austin, sitting beside her mother at the luncheon.

Jim Goodman, now a local swimming coach, was the only veteran at the luncheon who took his time entering civilian life: He built an entire career in Navy service. He started with ROTC at the University of Idaho, where he trained at a facility on a deep glacial lake where the Navy tested torpedoes. Goodman went on to a 20-year career commanding ships in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. He later taught at the Maine Maritime Academy for several years.

A variety of emotional impacts from military service

Penobscot's Frank Bowden,  Marine Corps veteran and retired miner. Photo by John Epstein.

Frank Bowden, who didn’t like high school at all, joined the Marines at 17. 

“I thought it was great. I grew up in a shack on the New Road [in Penobscot] that didn’t have electricity or running water, and there wasn’t much to eat.” He spoke fondly of being stationed at Guantanamo Bay during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. “Ed Sullivan came down and put on a show at Gitmo. We got to see pretty girls, and I could walk around with an M14 over my shoulder.”  

Bowden went on to have a career as a miner, first at the Callahan Mine on Cape Rosier, then in West Virginia, South Carolina, and South Dakota, where he drilled for copper, coal, and gold.  He’s now back living in Penobscot with his wife, Maria.

Air Force veteran Jesse Morehouse is a member of the American Legion Post in Southwest Harbor. He served in Vietnam as a crew chief assistant on huge C130 transport planes that flew out of Danang and Cameron Bay to unload supplies and equipment to U.S. soldiers in the field.  

“We flew just above the tree tops making our drops from the rear of the plane. We were getting shot at all the time, but we had no weapons to fire back,” he said. Coming home to the U.S. was hard for Morehouse. “No one wanted us home. We were called baby killers.”

Joel McGraw, Army veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm. Photo by John Epstein.

Penobscot’s Jeff Berzinis went into the Navy right out of high school in 1962 and served until 1970 as a radar mechanic.  He served mostly in the U.S., except for a short stint at Guantanamo Bay. “I was lucky not to go to Vietnam,” he said.

Harold Shaw, also from Penobscot, spent two years in the military, 1961-63, playing a brass horn in the 18th Army Band stationed at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts.

“I fought against disharmony,” he joked.

Joel McGraw’s time in the Army was not a laughing matter. From a family that had a long history of fighting in America’s wars going back to the Civil War, McGraw joined the Army in 1990 and fought in Operation Desert Storm in the mechanized infantry.

“We were in Bradley vehicles,” he said. “There were six of us grunts. We engaged the enemy by jumping out of te back.” In addition to extensive armed combat, McGraw and his fellow soldiers were subjected to heavy artillery fire, SCUD missile bombardments, and mustard and sarin gas attacks.

“I had years of depression,” said the former Army corporal, who suffered hearing loss and lung damage. McGraw now works as the arborist at Fort Knox in Bucksport, and is married with three children.

Sherri Whittaker, who manages the Castine Visitors Center, is a Marine veteran. “I joined in 1990; I was 25, living in Beverly, Massachusetts, and I was partying too much,” she said. “I needed a better direction in life.”

While in the Corps she specialized in radar operations.

“I loved the camaraderie, the discipline, the stimulation,” Whittaker added. “To this day it shapes my life.”

Sherri Whittaker discusses her service as a United States Marine. Video by John Epstein.

Patty Hutchins serves up apple pie and ice cream with help from Vivian Grindle and Patty's granddaughters, Margaret Tarr, far left, and Ruth Tarr, background. Photo by John Epstein.