At a veteran community dinner in Brattleboro, one day after Memorial Day last month, Richard “Dick” Hamilton, a 99-year-old World War II veteran and former prisoner of war, was put on the spot. Would he mind telling his story?
After some coaxing, and a warm plate of lasagna, he said, sure. “I’ll wing it,” he smiled.
Hamilton was an Army Air Forces radio operator and waist gunner on a B-17 Liberator when on his ninth combat mission over Nazi Germany on July 20, 1944, the bomber was attacked by German fighters and raked with gunfire.
He and four other members of the B-17’s nine-member crew were able to bail out. The pilot, navigator and a third crew member were killed.
Hamilton was beginning to tell his story when just 40 miles to his south, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, another profile in courage, was just arriving at First Churches of Northampton. Raskin was the guest of honor at a “Defending Our Democracy” town hall hosted by his good friend, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern of Worcester.
The town hall drew a standing room only crowd. Raskin is in high demand these days as one of the lead representatives investigating the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Since I couldn’t be in two places at the same time, I elected to see Hamilton in person. I figure I’ll get another chance to see Raskin someday, but the days are fleeting with Hamilton. Every day is a bonus when you’re 99 years young.
While Hamilton was settling in at the American Legion post in Brattleboro, my spouse, Denise, was among a group of people on Main Street in Northampton waiting to go into First Churches.
When Congressman Raskin appeared, smiling, and shaking hands, Denise texted me a photo of the moment.
“He arrives like a rock star,” she said. “A hero’s welcome,” I replied.
Raskin’s story is one that transcends politics. A former constitutional law professor and a colon cancer survivor, he’s also a husband and a father.
On Dec. 31, 2020, he got the news that no parent ever wants to hear. His son, Thomas, a 25-year-old Harvard University law student and social justice activist, took his own life after battling depression for years. On Jan. 6, 2021, the day after he buried his son, Rep. Raskin found himself hiding from his House colleagues from a violent mob incited by President Trump.
He then led the prosecution against Trump in a Senate impeachment trial and now serves on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6th insurrection.
Hamilton’s story is well known in Vermont, where various groups have asked him to share his wartime experience several times over the years.
He repeated it again in Brattleboro. Landing in a wheat field after an 18,000-foot parachute jump, a mob of German civilians with pitchforks and clubs turned him over to the Nazis. A villager spat in his face and called him, “Schweinhund.”
“I had lost my freedom,” he said.
He spent seven months in Stalag Luft IV in Pomerania, now Poland, and, as both Russian and American troops were closing in, the Germans decided to abandon the POW camp and forced Hamilton and his fellow prisoners on a 77-day road march across Germany in the dead of winter.
After his remarks, I asked him what one thinks about when you’re a prisoner of war. Do people today take freedom for granted?
“Until we lose our freedom, we don’t appreciate it,” he told me.
How do you explain that to young people?
He tells me he doesn’t understand why people spend so much time “on that,” and then points to my iPhone. “I don’t know what goes on behind these devices.”
Down in Northampton, Raskin outlined the surge of misinformation and threats leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He’s asking for our full attention as the House select committee winds down its investigation. On Thursday night, the committee held the first of nine planned hearings.
Watch for the unfolding of a narrative that will clearly show there was a coordinated and multistep effort to prevent the transfer of power and undermine everything that veterans like Hamilton fought for in all wars since the founding of our nation.
Raskin ended his remarks in Northampton by quoting Thomas Paine, the publisher of “Common Sense,” and “The American Crisis,” which advocated for an independent and self-governing America.
Raskin named his son after the American revolutionary.
“Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph,” Paine wrote.
With Hamilton and Raskin, my family got to see two heroes in one day. That’s a great day in anyone’s book. Both men know the price of freedom. And now, Congressman Raskin is leading the fight to save our country.
“Let’s make this victory ours,” Raskin said.
John Paradis, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, lives in Florence and writes a monthly column. He volunteers with the Building Bridges Veterans Initiative, which brings veterans together with complimentary meals to share friendship and support in 10 New England communities. Paradis can be reached at columnists@gazettenet.com.