Grand Marshals Still Answering The Call

MIDDLEBORO GAZETTE: - Marshalls Still Answering the Call - By Bob Barboza, Contributing Writer

........In terms of military service, Russell Pitsley, 96, and Walter Campbell, 86, are about as

far apart as opposites can get...one an infantry soldier who stayed stateside during his brief

wartime service, and the other a Navy veteran who saw the world and active service in three

military theaters.

..........This year,the two longtime members of the Middleboro Honor Guard have been selected as

grand marshals for the 2015 town Veterans Day parade, in recognition of their respective wartime

service and for their more recent service to local veterans with the Honor Guard.

.........Pittsley was a member of the National Guard in 1940, drilling with fellow part-time

soldiers on weekends, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt "activated all the National

Guard units," he recalled. "Suddenly, we were all in the Army. I was lucky...my unit served in

Texas for the duration of the war," he said.

.......Out of the service in 1946, Pittsley joined the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post for

a while, then drifted away. After re-joining the club, "I got involved with the Honor Guard,

around 2009," he said. Light duty, nce or twice a year; "I like it," the 96 year-old said

simply.

........He worked in the printing business for years after World War11, married and raised

three kids; belonged to the Middleboro Sportsman's Club, and likes to do a little shooting now

and then, he noted. These days, he also finds time to set up some of his model railroad tracks

in a spare room and send some engines for a spin now and then.

.......Nursing a bad back for a week at the end of October, Pitssley was hoping for some relief

from the pains before the big parade drew closer. He couldn't walk the route, and was looking

forward to a comfortable ride this year, sitting in a different place of honor than his usual

post, walking with the color guard.

......"As long as we're riding,I'll make it through the parade," the honored ex-soldier

insisted, bad back or not."I ain't going to be walking, that's for sure," he predicted.

......Walter Campbell is another member of the Middleboro Honor Guard, representing all the

veterans groups in town, and sponsored by the town's Veterans advisory Group. He claims to be

the longest-serving honor guard member around, tracing his career back "to the Sons of the

Legion, at seven years old," he said.

......His skill with the bugle led to lots of funerals for a lot of World War 1 veterans. Lots

of them gassed, and a lot of them were dying in their 40s and 50s," Campbell remembers. Taps

was played too often, he said.

......He joined the United States Navy 1950, and was "away in the service" for the next 26

years. It was conflict after another for those two and half decades, Cambell explained. In the

1950s, he had duty off Korea on an aircraft carrier; in the 1960s, he was serving on a

destroyer to support the Bay of Pigs invasion, sailed blockade duty off Cuba during the missile

crisis that followed shortly after.

......In Vietnam, Campbell moved down into quick little river patrol boats, roaring up and down

Vietnamese rivers on some dangerous duty. He left the Navy in 1976 as a chief bosun's mate, and

he and his bugle did 23 more years as the Taps bugler for the Mass. State Police (and supply

department driver) between musical duty assignments.

......When the call came for duty with the Middleboro Honor Guard, the Legion and VFW member

stepped up again to serve willingly. The MHS Class of '47 member has "no idea" why his fellow

veterans should pick him as parade marshal, he said."Pittsley maybe, being the oldest member of

the honor guard, should get some recognition, yes, but..."

......"Norm Record is the second oldest member of the group. I'm number three," Campbell says,

though first in service, he notes...if you look back to the old days, when the Sons of the

Legion honor guard was something to see, and he was one of them, marching for all to see.