By: John Cuddy – May, 2021 Dracut’s Arthur Ducharme Sr. is a US Navy World War II Pacific Theater Veteran. He turned ninety-six on April 1st of this year. Arthur is the older brother of World War II Veteran, Joseph Alfred Ducharme, who served as a Military Police Officer at the Nuremburg trials in Germany […]
By: John Cuddy – April, 2021 Dracut American Legion Executive Board Members US Army Veteran Chris “Scrubs” Coakley and US Air Force Veteran Stephen “Professor” O’Donnell are both also members of a patriotic motorcycle group known as the Nam Knights. During the summer of 1989, a small group of Harley Davidson riders, who were also […]
By: John Cuddy – March, 2021 North Andover’s Jack Garvin graduated from North Andover High, where he played football and captained the track team. He also served on the student council. Later, he attended Northern Essex Community College. After graduating from Northern Essex, he was drafted into the US Army, during the Vietnam War. He completed […]
By: John Cuddy – Feb, 2021 This is our third US Navy Seabee, who after serving in the Navy, became a police officer. Tom Murphy Jr. is a retired Lawrence Police Officer, who later retired from the Merrimack College Police Department as well. He grew up across the street from my father Jim, and my […]
“A Camping Trip with Automatic Weapons” By: John Cuddy “A camping trip with automatic weapons”, is how Hyde Park native and Boston Police Officer James LaCroix described his service in Bosnia with the US Navy Seabees as an Equipment Operator 3rd Class. James is not the only family member who served in the US Navy, […]
By: John Cuddy – Dec. 2020 Retired New York City Police Officer, John Joseph Ratomski, tried to enlist in the Marine Corps the year after Pearl Harbor, in December of 1942. Joe, as he was known to his friends, was found to be color blind, and the Marines rejected him for this reason. The US […]
By: John Cuddy – November, 2020 LOWELL – A native of Lowell, Massachusetts, Donald Gelineau served in the Pacific Theater during World War II for twenty-four months. Growing up in a large French-Canadian family during the Great Depression, he hunted, fished and gathered nuts/fruits to supplement the family’s food. Don reminisces of his time as […]
By: John Cuddy – Oct. 2020 Braintree, Massachusetts native, Robert Lucas, led a very interesting life, from pitching for the Boston Braves Farm system, to serving during the Korean conflict in the US Army infantry, to being on duty as a State Trooper on Martha’s Vineyard on the night of “Chappaquiddick”! Bob was selected as […]
By: John Cuddy – Sept. 2020 PELHAM, NH – An alumnus of Methuen’s Tenney Memorial High, Class of 1945, where he played football and ran track, Joseph Ducharme is a lifelong Pelham, New Hampshire resident. Back in the 1940s, Pelham, New Hampshire was too small for a high school, so the town sent the children […]
Help The Valley Patriot Stay in Business Your Donation of ANY Amount helps By: John Cuddy – Aug, 2020 LAWRENCE – Greater Lawrence Technical School graduate and Lawrence native, Kevin Donahue, and I recently had dinner at Methuen’s Muddy Waters Restaurant. We had a fantastic meal, and the Donahue family really enjoyed the beer, pizza, […]
By: John Cuddy – July, 2020 DRACUT – Born April 19, 1927, the youngest son of Polish immigrants, Dracut’s Alfred Araskiewicz was introduced to me by a fellow Scout leader, his neighbor, Paul Taylor. He graduated from Dracut High School with the Class of 1944. My first interview was with his granddaughter, Jennifer Phillips. She […]
From Woodstock to Vietnam By: John Cuddy – June, 2020 Bill McCann was born in 1950 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He grew up in the Tower Hill Section of the city. Bill attended Lawrence High School and transferred to North Andover High School for his Senior Year. He graduated in June 1969 and applied to attend […]
By: John Cuddy – April, 2020 PELHAM, NH, New Hampshire’s Tony Marino grew up in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He was an athlete at Chelsea High, graduating with the class of 1940. His wife, Loretta, graduated from the same school with the class of 1944. Tony was attending a family wedding with his mother when the news […]
Heroes Still Serving By: John Cuddy Meeting Don Silba, Joseph Augusta, Jim Moran, Joe DiZoglio, and the other US Military Veteran members of the Queen City Chapter 2’s Service Center at the Lawrence Disabled American Veterans was an eye-opening experience. I stopped by their Lawrence Office at 112A East Haverhill Street, in Lawrence’s Prospect Hill […]
By: John Cuddy – Feb. 2020 Raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Ronald Santagati is now living in Salem, New Hampshire with his wife (and high school sweetheart) Joan, to whom he has been married to for nearly sixty-five years. During our Saturday morning meeting over coffee and Tripoli cookies in his kitchen, we started with a […]