SouthCoast 50 Plus Magazine Highlights Three Post 64 Members

...................................BOB LESSARD, POST 64 HISTORIAN

...........September 2015…SouthCoast Magazine 50 Plus….BY ERIN HEALY, EDITOR…..

...................................VETERANS HONORING VETERANS

…….(Robert "Bob" Lessard, Historian American Legion Simeon L. Nickerson Post 64, 8 Thatcher

Row, Middleboro, MA 02346 508-947-7227 http://centennial.legion.org/ massachusetts/post64)

……If you plan on spending any time with Bob Lessard, post historian and Middleboro

Veterans Council vice commander, you better clear your schedule. He remembers every

detail of every story about every Middleboro veteran in every war, and it is a sometimes-

heroic, some-times-tragic, but always riveting story.

…….Bob attended a small French Catholic school in Lynn, and then he joined the Air

Force and served from 1961 to '65. He heard they had spacious three-man quarters and

good food. After basic and advanced training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and a

trip to Gunter, Ala. for medical training, he was stationed at Westover Air Force Base in

Chicopee, Mass. "I set out to see the world and all I saw was the Mass Pike, heading up

and down from Lynn to Chicopee."

……Bob then worked for UPS for 33 years. He and his wife, Jane, have a son and a

daughter.

…….One of Bob's passions was greyhound racing. He and Jane were married in a

small ceremony at Sacred Heart Catholic church in Middleboro on a Friday night, and

their weekend honeymoon and many months thereafter were spent at a farm, caring for

and racing greyhounds.

…….Another of Bob's passion is preserving the history of Middleboro's veterans. When

the American Legion post moved from a second-floor location that older members could

no longer access and took over its current location, a gold-mine

of history was unearthed.

…….."Those old guys kept everything," Bob said. When the Legion sent care packages

to the 415 Middleboro men who served in WWI, many of those boys wrote thank-yous

back. All of those cards and letters from nearly 100 years ago are still safe and sound in

the Legion's care, and you may get a copy of your family member's note.

………Other historically relevant documents are also being cataloged. To date, Eric

Goodnow, a volunteer from the Middleboro Veterans of Foreign Wars John F. Glass, Jr.,

Post 2188, has scanned 10,197 documents. Eric served four years as a signalman aboard

the USS Hepburn 1055, a destroyer escort, during the Grenada era.

………As Bob has chronicled in area newspapers, he continues to fight for post honoree

Simeon L. Nickerson's Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second-highest award, to

be upgraded to a Medal of Honor. During a WWI battle against the Germans, Sergeant

Nickerson and two others, volunteered to cross an open wheat field in order to ascertain

the location of the enemy's machine-gun nest. In so doing, the three sacrificed their lives

so that their brethren might live.

…….Then there's the story of Middleboro's Medal of Honor recipient, 2LT Patrick

Regan, a U.S. Army officer...and the rebound volume in the town hall's climate-

controlled safe of first-hand accounts by Middleboro Civil War veterans...and the story

of the...

....................................DONALD TRINER, POST 64 COMMANDER

Donald Triner, Commander American Legion Simeon L. Nickerson Post 64 8 Thatcher Row,

Middleboro, MA 02346 508-947-7227 http://centennial.legion.org/massachusetts/ post64

................................... VETERANS ….BY ERIN HEALY

……This is Don Triner's third time serving as commander of the Simeon L. Nickerson

American Legion Post 64 in Middleboro. It's easy to see why he keeps getting re-elected;

he's a natural with an easy sense of humor.

…….Don served in the U.S. Navy for "three years, one month, and seven days." If you

enlisted before you turned 18, you got out on your 21st birthday, he explained. "They

called it the kiddie cruise."

……Don got out as an SK2, a rank that doesn't exist anymore. It stands for shop keeper

second class, and the job entailed buying provisions for the ship. For the next 34 years,

Don worked in distribution for what is now EverSource Energy, starting back when it

was Cambridge Gas Company, then Commonwealth Gas and finally NStar.

…….Don and his wife, Betty, have four children, nine grandkids and one great-grandchild!

…….Before recently moving to Hanover, Don lived in Oak Point, a 55-plus community

in Middleboro. While there he was active in the Oak Point Veterans Association, one of

four veteran organizations that comprise the Middleboro Veterans Council, along with

Veterans of Foreign Wars John F. Glass Jr. Post 2188, Corporal William F. Reader Mass.

Chapter 57 of the Disabled American Veterans, and of course, the Legion post Don

commands.

……..Don's also chairs the Middleboro Veteran's Memorial Park Trust, which oversaw

the planning and building stages of the impressive collection of benches, monuments and

brick pathways at the town hall, and now manages their care. Whereas small-town

veterans memorials may sell a hundred bricks, engraved in honor of a veteran, Middleboro's park

trust has sold 2100!

………Bricks cost $5o each for both veteran, which are inlaid inside the flagpole circle,

and non-veteran, which are outside in the walkway. If you want an emblem—Army,

Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, National Guard or Air

National Guard—then you are allowed three lines of 12 characters each. If you don't want

an emblem, you are allowed three lines of 20 characters each. Include donor's name,

address and phone number with a check made out to Middleboro Veterans' Memorial

Park, c/o Paul Kreitzberg, 6101 Oak Point Drive, Middleboro, MA 02346.

…………..................PAUL PROVENCHER, VETERANS SERVICES OFFICER

…………….................BY ERIN HEALY……. Massachusetts requires that each town in the

Commonwealth have a point person for that town's veterans. In Middleboro, that's Paul

Provencher. Paul's job is to ensure that Middleboro veterans and their eligible dependents

get connected to the appropriate sources and programs for health care, education,

disability and burial benefits and anything else a veteran may need.

………The only requirement is that you be a Middleboro veteran or dependent. If you're

not from Middleboro, contact your town's veterans services officer. Except for his 25

years in the U.S. Army, Paul's been a Middleboro resident since he was adopted at 5. All

he knew when he enlisted was that he wanted to do something in the mental health field.

The Army was the only branch that had anything like that, Paul said. He went to San

Antonio, Texas for training and spent the next 10 years as a psychology specialist, focus-

ing on heroin rehabilitation in Vietnam veterans.

…….After that, Paul became an administrator, continuing with his expertise in drug-

and-alcohol treatment. He retired as an E7, sergeant first class, on April Fool's Day, 1996,

he explains, with a chuckle.

……..He and his wife, Francine, have two grown daughters and 2 grandkids, 8-year - old twins,

and Paul is in the process of making a treehouse for them.

……..If you go to see him, be sure to carve out lots of time because his office and an

adjoining conference room are jam-packed with Middleboro's military history: uniforms,

books, even the bell from a ship named after Middleboro Medal of Honor recipient,

Wayne M. Caron, Marine corpsman third class, who was killed while administering to

three fallen brethren during a firefight in Vietnam. (Historian Note:-Paul Provencher is a

Past Commander of Simeon L. Nickerson Post 64 American Legion.)