Natick Veterans Oral History Project Army, Cold War, Connecticut, Homefront, WWII

Thomas A. Hunt

 

U.S. Army 1954–1956

 

While lying in bed at night, Thomas Hunt would hear squadrons of bombers fly over his home in New Canaan, Conn., and knew the types of planes from the engine sounds they made. This is just one of the stories Tom recollects about his boyhood days before and during World War II. He talks about his brother, Bob, who served in the Marines and was wounded at Okinawa, and about his own experiences serving the U.S. Army in West Germany during the Cold War in the 1950s.

 

Robert Hunt, Thomas Hunt’s brother, who served in the Marines.

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Natick Veterans Oral History Project Korea, Navy

Thomas J. Hudner

U.S. Navy 1946–1953


 
Graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, Hudner was assigned to a cruiser north of Shanghai as a ship’s signal officer. Receiving his wings in 1949 he trained to be a pilot and was assigned to the carrier, USS Leyte. Hudner talks of the unrest leading up to the Korean War. In December 1950 he and his Fighter Squadron 32 were on a mission to attack “targets of opportunity” when a member of the Squadron was hit and crash landed. Jesse Brown, the first black aviator in naval history was at first thought dead but Hudner crash landed his own plane to save his friend. For this he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Hudner speaks eloquently about his comrades and how his military career affected his life.

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Natick Veterans Oral History Project Cold War, Navy

Joyce T. Hubbard

U.S. Navy 1961–1963

 

Joyce Tartarini grew up in Natick and upon graduation from Natick High School, and inspired by JFK’s message to “ask what you can do for your country,” she and her twin brother enlisted in the Navy. Training as a corp-WAVE (medic) she was stationed in Charleston, S.C. After marrying she became a military wife and found that the wives were treated almost as second-class citizens. While her husband was serving in Vietnam she would receive threatening phone calls in the middle of the night. He finished his military service in 1980, and the couple moved to Florida. Their son served in the Navy and their grandson served in Iraq.

 

Joyce Tartarini at her graduation.

 

Joyce and her brother, Douglas, 1961

 

Peter Tartarini

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Natick Veterans Oral History Project Army, Cold War, Marines, Vietnam

Dan Hubbard

U.S. Army 1956–1960
U.S. Marine Corps 1960–1980

 

Dan Hubbard was born and raised in West Virginia. He served four years in the Army from 1957-61, went back to civilian life and decided it wasn’t for him. So he joined the Marines. Dan talks about his 20-plus year military career in both branches, including his two tours in Vietnam. Dan also talks about the way the military was treated by the media and the public in the 1960s.

 

Dan Hubbard, 1966
Dan and Joyce Hubbard, 1963
Dan Hubbard at Camp Hansen, 1977

 

J. Anthony Hubbard, grandson

 

Joyce and Dan Hubbard, 2011

 

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Natick Veterans Oral History Project Navy, Vietnam

David Holly

U.S. Navy 1970–1974

David Holly enlisted in the Navy in 1970 and although his background was in art, he was trained to be a medical corpsman. He served at the Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston, then at the USMC base at Camp Pendleton, CA. There he trained with and provided medical assistance to Special Forces. After leaving the service in 1974 Holly went to nursing school and worked thirty years in the critical care unit at the Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick.

 

David Holly, 2013

David Holly with some Marines.
David Holly in his Naval uniform.

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Natick Veterans Oral History Project Army, Haiti, Peacetime, USA

Jennifer Holey

U.S. Army 1994–2002

 

Jennifer Holey entered the Army Nurse Corps after graduating from Texas Christian University, where she was a member of ROTC. Her eight-year career in the Army included six months in Haiti as an ER nurse at a United Nations facility in Port-au-Prince. She described her experiences there in her self-published memoir, “Cinderella, The Church and a Crazy Lady.”

 

Jennifer Holey, 2014

 

 
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