Published in the Current
Over 30 high school freshmen athletes will see the benefit of funding from the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation and other local organizations this year, in the form of a new program designed to make it “cool” to not use alcohol and drugs in Cape Elizabeth.
That’s in contrast to the present situation, according to organizer Andy Strout.
Strout, a physical education teacher at the middle school and a coach of the boys varsity soccer and tennis teams, said the social climate at the high school has a simple summary: “It’s cool to drink.” He said there are students who would prefer not to drink, but have no non-alcoholic alternatives in town. “Right now, you don’t have a choice,” he said.
Cape Athletics for a Positive Environment and Lifestyle, “Cape Life” for short, is his plan. He wants to make it acceptable for kids not to drink, by providing a range of activities and learning sessions for students who pledge to remain substance-free for the year.
The sessions will be led by a professional facilitator, Michael Brennan, who leads similar groups at Deering High School and actively involves the students in learning and experiencing important lessons on topics important for student athletes, Strout said.
Brennan will host workshops on leadership, role modeling, positive self-talk, visualization and nutrition for athletes. Strout said they will be active and fun activities, “not like class.” Brennan’s stipend will be paid by the Education Foundation’s $1,500 grant, enabling the program to begin without needing to raise significant initial funding, Strout said.
A parallel set of fun activities will be scheduled throughout the year, he said, including outings to local athletic events, pizza parties at the Community Center and other activities designed to bring students together to have fun in a safe, substance-free way.
There has been a good reception from new freshmen, Strout said. “There are some that can’t wait.” He also has a number of juniors and seniors, who will be participating as leaders in the group.
This is the latest in a series of efforts in Cape to provide alternative recreation for teens. Two years ago, Strout and other coaches had what was called the Captain’s Club, in which they met with all the captains of the athletic teams and encouraged them to use their leadership role to discourage drinking.
It wasn’t very successful, for one reason: “We were targeting the wrong people,” he said.
The captains had already made their social choices, and as seniors already had a pattern of behavior that was hard to change. Cape Life targets freshmen, before they set up their patterns of social behavior in high school.
The Cape Community Coalition also focuses on the issues of teen drinking and drug abuse, and will be involved in the Cape Life effort as well, Strout said.
Cape Life will extend to coaches as well as players, he said, to try to create a more positive atmosphere for student-athletes who make good choices.
After failed efforts to get a special segment of the town Community Center set aside for teens, in which Strout played a strong role, he has decided they can make do with what the center already has: a pool table, a foosball table and ping-pong. He said those activities on their own are a big draw for teens, and plans to use them as added attractions for Cape Life activities.
Money from the Soccer Boosters has already come in to assist with pizza and other activities, and Strout is hoping for additional funds from other booster groups throughout the year.
He will spend more effort looking for funds in January, when he begins a sabbatical.
He will be researching leadership issues in student athletics, including coaching, captaincy and peer interactions.
He expects to have time to meet with a number of groups around the area to solicit additional support, as well as spend time incorporating some of what he learns into the Cape Life program.
And though the ultimate success of the program depends on the level of involvement from students, Strout is optimistic. “I’m really excited,” he said.
Thursday, October 17, 2002
On Active Duty: Pfc. Justin Wesley
Published in the Current
Private First Class Justin Wesley is serving in the U.S. Army in Korea as a rocket launch specialist. A recent graduate of Cape Elizabeth High School, Wesley studied engineering at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania for two years before enlisting in the Army, originally with the intent of studying foreign languages, according to his parents, Maurice and Sylvia Wesley.
In January, 2001, he signed up with the Army and went to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and then advanced infantry training at Fort Sill, Okla., where he decided to enter the artillery, despite having aptitude test scores good enough to get into the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif.
After Fort Sill, Wesley went to Korea, where he has been since. Life has changed since Sept. 11, his parents said. Where previously soldiers were out in the field for three or four days at a time and then back at their bases for a week or more, now they are out in tents for 10 or more days at a stretch, followed by less time at the base before more field time.
That field time can be very difficult, his parents said, because of the cold weather in Korea. “They had snow before we did,” Sylvia said.
She said his letters home indicate that he’s not entirely happy with what he’s doing, but is growing up and having opportunities he might not otherwise have.
“The military takes you places you never would get to go,” Maurice said. It also leads to experience and leadership opportunities that can help open doors after the military, he said. Maurice said he hopes his son will decide to pursue higher education again when he returns.
Wesley is nearing the end of his tour and will shortly be on his way back home on leave. He will stop in San Francisco to visit his sister, and then will stop at Lehigh to see friends before coming back to Cape Elizabeth for a visit before heading back to Fort Sill for his next assignment.
He has three more years to go and may change his specialty and stay in, but his parents aren’t sure what will happen. They look forward to seeing him soon, as well as the deluge of friends that come over anytime he is home.
Private First Class Justin Wesley is serving in the U.S. Army in Korea as a rocket launch specialist. A recent graduate of Cape Elizabeth High School, Wesley studied engineering at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania for two years before enlisting in the Army, originally with the intent of studying foreign languages, according to his parents, Maurice and Sylvia Wesley.
In January, 2001, he signed up with the Army and went to basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and then advanced infantry training at Fort Sill, Okla., where he decided to enter the artillery, despite having aptitude test scores good enough to get into the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif.
After Fort Sill, Wesley went to Korea, where he has been since. Life has changed since Sept. 11, his parents said. Where previously soldiers were out in the field for three or four days at a time and then back at their bases for a week or more, now they are out in tents for 10 or more days at a stretch, followed by less time at the base before more field time.
That field time can be very difficult, his parents said, because of the cold weather in Korea. “They had snow before we did,” Sylvia said.
She said his letters home indicate that he’s not entirely happy with what he’s doing, but is growing up and having opportunities he might not otherwise have.
“The military takes you places you never would get to go,” Maurice said. It also leads to experience and leadership opportunities that can help open doors after the military, he said. Maurice said he hopes his son will decide to pursue higher education again when he returns.
Wesley is nearing the end of his tour and will shortly be on his way back home on leave. He will stop in San Francisco to visit his sister, and then will stop at Lehigh to see friends before coming back to Cape Elizabeth for a visit before heading back to Fort Sill for his next assignment.
He has three more years to go and may change his specialty and stay in, but his parents aren’t sure what will happen. They look forward to seeing him soon, as well as the deluge of friends that come over anytime he is home.
Plenty of oil but price uncertain
Published in the Current
Local oil dealers say fear about a war with Iraq may drive oil prices up a bit in the short term, but there is plenty of oil to go around and prices will stabilize.
Jeff Quirk of Quirk Oil Company in Scarborough said prices may be going up slightly right now, but are generally stable.
Last year, people thought oil prices would climb after Sept. 11, but they did not. Quirk expects similar psychological factors this year to contribute to oil price uncertainty.
Kevin Frederick of Frederick Brothers Oil in Scarborough said, “nobody knows for certain what it’s going to do.”
He said military action in Iraq could cause prices to rise initially, but that would be because of public concern and not any real issue with the oil supply.
Those price hikes may be artificial to some degree, reflecting refineries’ desire to make a profit from public concern rather than decreased oil supply, dealers said.
Buyers may not have a wide range of prices to choose from.
“Most all of us buy from the same supplier or suppliers,” Quirk said.
Local dealers don’t hike their prices “unless they have to,” Frederick said. And when they do raise prices, they don’t always pass on the full increase to customers.
Small dealers, he said, will often handle a five-cent supplier-price increase by raising their own prices two or three cents and absorbing the rest as a reduction in profit.
Bill Fielding Jr. of Fielding’s Oil Company in Scarborough said his customers are also worried, and prices have climbed slowly for the past two months. He has had some calls from people who want to pre-buy oil to lock in a price, even if they might not normally do so.
Fielding cautioned that those people are taking a risk: If oil prices go down, they might have spent more money than they would need to.
Michael Constantine of Champion Fuel Company in Cape Elizabeth said his customers are worried about what war might mean for oil prices, but there is plenty of oil in reserve. Homeowners may have a lot of oil already in their
tanks, because of warm temperatures last year, while oil companies have thousands of gallons in their tanks already because they sold so little oil last winter.
“I don’t see that there’s going to be a problem for anybody,” Constantine said.
Local oil dealers say fear about a war with Iraq may drive oil prices up a bit in the short term, but there is plenty of oil to go around and prices will stabilize.
Jeff Quirk of Quirk Oil Company in Scarborough said prices may be going up slightly right now, but are generally stable.
Last year, people thought oil prices would climb after Sept. 11, but they did not. Quirk expects similar psychological factors this year to contribute to oil price uncertainty.
Kevin Frederick of Frederick Brothers Oil in Scarborough said, “nobody knows for certain what it’s going to do.”
He said military action in Iraq could cause prices to rise initially, but that would be because of public concern and not any real issue with the oil supply.
Those price hikes may be artificial to some degree, reflecting refineries’ desire to make a profit from public concern rather than decreased oil supply, dealers said.
Buyers may not have a wide range of prices to choose from.
“Most all of us buy from the same supplier or suppliers,” Quirk said.
Local dealers don’t hike their prices “unless they have to,” Frederick said. And when they do raise prices, they don’t always pass on the full increase to customers.
Small dealers, he said, will often handle a five-cent supplier-price increase by raising their own prices two or three cents and absorbing the rest as a reduction in profit.
Bill Fielding Jr. of Fielding’s Oil Company in Scarborough said his customers are also worried, and prices have climbed slowly for the past two months. He has had some calls from people who want to pre-buy oil to lock in a price, even if they might not normally do so.
Fielding cautioned that those people are taking a risk: If oil prices go down, they might have spent more money than they would need to.
Michael Constantine of Champion Fuel Company in Cape Elizabeth said his customers are worried about what war might mean for oil prices, but there is plenty of oil in reserve. Homeowners may have a lot of oil already in their
tanks, because of warm temperatures last year, while oil companies have thousands of gallons in their tanks already because they sold so little oil last winter.
“I don’t see that there’s going to be a problem for anybody,” Constantine said.
Woman dies in motorcycle accident
Published in the Current; co-written with Kate Irish Collins
Elaine Mitchell, 41, of Scarborough was laid to rest Tuesday morning after being killed in a motorcycle accident on Pleasant Hill Road on Friday, Oct. 11.
She was a passenger on a motorcycle driven by her longtime companion, James Goode, 45, of Scarborough when the vehicle collided with a deer at
5:48 p.m. Both were treated at the scene and taken to Maine Medical Center, where Mitchell was later pronounced dead.
Goode was treated for what Scarborough police called “non-life-threatening injuries.”
Neither were wearing helmets, according to Sgt. Greg Bedor. He said about half of the people he sees on motorcycles are wearing helmets. The rest, he said, “take their chances.”
Mitchell leaves behind a daughter, Brianna, a junior at Scarborough High School, and a large family of brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews. She was remembered Tuesday for having a great love of life, including spending time with her daughter and traveling to the Caribbean.
Mitchell’s death was called “a sad and dreadful nightmare” by Father James Morrison, who officiated at the funeral held at St. Maximilian Kolbe Church in Scarborough. “Though we might want to, we cannot turn the clock back,” he added.
Father Morrison also had special words for Brianna, who was accompanied to the service by friends and teachers. He told her to think long and hard about the one thing of her mother’s she might want to keep - something that would stay with her always. “Try to hold on to that one thing that says who your mother was,” Father Morrison said.
He also urged Mitchell’s family not to think about the “what if.”
“You are all wondering why did this happen and could it have been prevented? Was there anything that could have been done at the scene afterward that would have saved Elaine’s life? And the answer is ‘no.’ Everyone did the best that they could,” Father Morrison said.
Father Morrison also told Mitchell’s family, friends, and coworkers that no one has the answers, but they could offer each other a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on and words of gentle mercy and hope. “Soon the joy and the laughter will come back and the stories and memories you have of Elaine will have warmth and meaning again,” he said.
For the past five years, Mitchell, who was born in Van Buren, held the position of Human Resources Manager at Nordx Laboratories.
Those wishing to honor Mitchell’s memory are asked to make donations in her name to the Scarborough Rescue, c/o Anthony Attardo at 246 U.S. Route 1, Scarborough or to the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center, 22 Bramhall Street, Portland.
Elaine Mitchell, 41, of Scarborough was laid to rest Tuesday morning after being killed in a motorcycle accident on Pleasant Hill Road on Friday, Oct. 11.
She was a passenger on a motorcycle driven by her longtime companion, James Goode, 45, of Scarborough when the vehicle collided with a deer at
5:48 p.m. Both were treated at the scene and taken to Maine Medical Center, where Mitchell was later pronounced dead.
Goode was treated for what Scarborough police called “non-life-threatening injuries.”
Neither were wearing helmets, according to Sgt. Greg Bedor. He said about half of the people he sees on motorcycles are wearing helmets. The rest, he said, “take their chances.”
Mitchell leaves behind a daughter, Brianna, a junior at Scarborough High School, and a large family of brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews. She was remembered Tuesday for having a great love of life, including spending time with her daughter and traveling to the Caribbean.
Mitchell’s death was called “a sad and dreadful nightmare” by Father James Morrison, who officiated at the funeral held at St. Maximilian Kolbe Church in Scarborough. “Though we might want to, we cannot turn the clock back,” he added.
Father Morrison also had special words for Brianna, who was accompanied to the service by friends and teachers. He told her to think long and hard about the one thing of her mother’s she might want to keep - something that would stay with her always. “Try to hold on to that one thing that says who your mother was,” Father Morrison said.
He also urged Mitchell’s family not to think about the “what if.”
“You are all wondering why did this happen and could it have been prevented? Was there anything that could have been done at the scene afterward that would have saved Elaine’s life? And the answer is ‘no.’ Everyone did the best that they could,” Father Morrison said.
Father Morrison also told Mitchell’s family, friends, and coworkers that no one has the answers, but they could offer each other a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on and words of gentle mercy and hope. “Soon the joy and the laughter will come back and the stories and memories you have of Elaine will have warmth and meaning again,” he said.
For the past five years, Mitchell, who was born in Van Buren, held the position of Human Resources Manager at Nordx Laboratories.
Those wishing to honor Mitchell’s memory are asked to make donations in her name to the Scarborough Rescue, c/o Anthony Attardo at 246 U.S. Route 1, Scarborough or to the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center, 22 Bramhall Street, Portland.
One of the “Band of Brothers”
Published in the Current
Walking into Lester Hashey’s home, it’s clear he is a veteran proud of his service. The former paratrooper has a small parachuting figure hanging
high in a living room window. A poster with the names of the 51 men of his outfit who were killed in action hangs in the corner, a litany of small-print names impossible to ignore.
And upstairs, his beloved pool table is covered in piles of photos from the war and unit reunions since. On the walls are mementos, including his Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal, unit patches and his paratrooper’s wings.
But not until the time comes to leave the Scarborough home of this energetic 77-year-old does his role in history become clear. To the right of the front door hangs a 16-by-20-inch print of a drawing of a church in the Dutch town of Eindhoven, a town liberated by Hashey and his fellow soldiers in 1944.
Though the church was destroyed, a modern Dutch artist drew it in honor of the liberation.
Printed at the bottom of the display are five simple words: “Thank you for our freedom.”
Hashey has had a lot of recognition, especially in the last 10 years or so, as a former member of Easy Company, Second Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.
He and 37 others are the only surviving members of a group that has become famous in the Emmy-winning HBO special “Band of Brothers,” inspired by the Stephen Ambrose book of the same name.
Hashey remembers the day the group liberated the town, having parachuted in the night before, as part of Operation Market Garden, to secure the town. The soldiers were, he said, “looking for German snipers” while being greeted by thousands of people in the streets, who lifted the Americans on their shoulders to celebrate their freedom.
That day, Hashey signed a school notebook belonging to a 16-year-old Dutch girl named Lise. “Everybody wanted your autograph,” he said.
Many years later, at the 2000 dedication of the D-Day Museum in New Orleans, he saw Lise again, and she was carrying her notebook.
“She came all the way from Holland to thank me for her freedom,” Hashey said.
A boy’s dream
When Hashey was 15, he went to see a double-feature at a Portland movie theater, and saw a short newsreel about an elite group of infantry, whose soldiers were trained paratroopers as well as excellent skiers.
Right then, he decided that was what he wanted to do. Two years later, in 1942, he dropped out of Portland High School to become a shipbuilder in the Liberty shipyards in South Portland. Soon after, he was drafted into the Army.
He volunteered for airborne duty and was part of the 93rd class of paratroopers. “It was tough,” he said, but rewarding, “to be a paratrooper at a time when nobody had ever been up in a plane.” Paratroopers never had it easy. If they went up in a plane, it was for a jump. “It wasn’t until 1950 – the Berlin airlift – that I ever landed in a plane,” Hashey said.
He joined Easy Company after half the unit’s members were killed during the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. They jumped into Holland on Sept. 17 of that year, as part of Operation Market Garden, designed to open a route from Eindhoven north to Arnhem. Expecting to be on the ground for a week, they ended up there for nearly three months.
The original intent of the mission was to take a bridge and hold it until the tanks arrived. Resistance was tough, and on a planned rest away from the front, Hashey and his fellow soldiers found themselves in the middle of one of the key battles of the war.
“We weren’t sure what country we were in,” Hashey said. They had little ammunition, having left the front lines. But they soon found out both where they were and what kind of firepower they would need: The Germans broke through Allied lines on both sides of the town of Bastogne, Belgium, surrounding Hashey and his comrades.
The men formed a circle, with the artillery in the center, and fought off repeated German attacks for 10 days before they were able to reconnect with Allied forces.
Hashey remembers how close the battles were. Had the Germans attacked from more than one point simultaneously, he said, the artillery would have been too weak to repel the attacks, and “they would have had us all for prisoners of war.”
After the soldiers broke the siege, they went immediately on the offensive, fighting their way up the road to the town of Foy, where Hashey was wounded in action and evacuated for treatment.
He returned to Belgium in 1994 for the 50th anniversary of D-Day and went on a short drive to Foy. He saw the ridge he once climbed, but because they were all foot soldiers, “there’s no evidence that we were ever there,” he said.
The welcome he got, though, was evidence enough. In addition to the medal from the Queen of the Netherlands, there was an amazing parade. “Three hundred thousand people came to watch us walk through a town,” Hashey said, beaming.
The road to stardom
Such attention wasn’t what he expected. After the war, he became a swimming instructor and sports director, working at military bases all over Europe and in Asia. He even taught West Point cadets and Special Forces troops how to swim and fight in the water.
When he retired from the service in 1963, he got a job with the American Red Cross, teaching swimming around the country. He retired recently from his job as director of water safety and first aid in Portland, but still teaches CPR a couple of days a week, which he has done since CPR was developed in 1971.
For his dedication, he was made a commodore in the Commodore Longfellow Society, named after the founder of the American Red Cross swimming and lifeguarding program, in what he said was one of the proudest moments of his life. Next week he will present the first Lester A. Hashey Award for Teaching Excellence to a Portland-area Red Cross teacher.
Hashey never thought his experience on the ground in Europe in 1944 would end up as a big story. But World War II historian Stephen Ambrose changed that. Ambrose, who died at age 66 earlier this week, “was a great guy,” Hashey said.
Ambrose spent hours and hours interviewing each of the men in Hashey’s unit in a hotel room during the reunion, and wrote a book, “Band of Brothers.” Actor and director Tom Hanks took the book and made a docudrama miniseries for HBO about the men of Easy Company, including Hashey.
The story has attracted attention from all over the world. The unit just had a reunion, which was attended by over 300 people, more than triple the largest reunion attendance before. He and his buddies sat at a long table and in two and a half hours, Hashey estimates, signed over 1,000 copies of Ambrose’s book.
Hashey is clearly proud of his accomplishments and said that being a paratrooper is one of the things he is most proud of, along with being a commodore. He met a goal he had when he was young, and it gave him the confidence to “do anything” with his life, despite difficult beginnings.
“Back in the Depression days things were tough. When I quit school, nobody told me that was a stupid thing to do,” Hashey said.
Even that has now been remedied. A couple of weeks ago, Portland High School granted him a diploma, under a program that allows veterans who dropped out to be awarded diplomas now.
What he did instead of high school may make for better storytelling, though. Looking at a photo from the war, he remembers every detail. He and a buddy were spending the night in the top of a windmill near the Rhine River and could smell someone cooking beef nearby. He convinced his friend to come downstairs with him to get some food.
Just when they reached the bottom of the stairs, two shells hit the windmill. When they returned to their sleeping site, Hashey’s sleeping bag had large holes in it, and his pack was destroyed. “My toothpaste was blown up,” Hashey said.
That 1944 photo reminds him that every moment is lucky. “I almost got killed in this windmill,” he said. “If we had been one minute later. . . ”
Walking into Lester Hashey’s home, it’s clear he is a veteran proud of his service. The former paratrooper has a small parachuting figure hanging
high in a living room window. A poster with the names of the 51 men of his outfit who were killed in action hangs in the corner, a litany of small-print names impossible to ignore.
And upstairs, his beloved pool table is covered in piles of photos from the war and unit reunions since. On the walls are mementos, including his Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal, unit patches and his paratrooper’s wings.
But not until the time comes to leave the Scarborough home of this energetic 77-year-old does his role in history become clear. To the right of the front door hangs a 16-by-20-inch print of a drawing of a church in the Dutch town of Eindhoven, a town liberated by Hashey and his fellow soldiers in 1944.
Though the church was destroyed, a modern Dutch artist drew it in honor of the liberation.
Printed at the bottom of the display are five simple words: “Thank you for our freedom.”
Hashey has had a lot of recognition, especially in the last 10 years or so, as a former member of Easy Company, Second Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.
He and 37 others are the only surviving members of a group that has become famous in the Emmy-winning HBO special “Band of Brothers,” inspired by the Stephen Ambrose book of the same name.
Hashey remembers the day the group liberated the town, having parachuted in the night before, as part of Operation Market Garden, to secure the town. The soldiers were, he said, “looking for German snipers” while being greeted by thousands of people in the streets, who lifted the Americans on their shoulders to celebrate their freedom.
That day, Hashey signed a school notebook belonging to a 16-year-old Dutch girl named Lise. “Everybody wanted your autograph,” he said.
Many years later, at the 2000 dedication of the D-Day Museum in New Orleans, he saw Lise again, and she was carrying her notebook.
“She came all the way from Holland to thank me for her freedom,” Hashey said.
A boy’s dream
When Hashey was 15, he went to see a double-feature at a Portland movie theater, and saw a short newsreel about an elite group of infantry, whose soldiers were trained paratroopers as well as excellent skiers.
Right then, he decided that was what he wanted to do. Two years later, in 1942, he dropped out of Portland High School to become a shipbuilder in the Liberty shipyards in South Portland. Soon after, he was drafted into the Army.
He volunteered for airborne duty and was part of the 93rd class of paratroopers. “It was tough,” he said, but rewarding, “to be a paratrooper at a time when nobody had ever been up in a plane.” Paratroopers never had it easy. If they went up in a plane, it was for a jump. “It wasn’t until 1950 – the Berlin airlift – that I ever landed in a plane,” Hashey said.
He joined Easy Company after half the unit’s members were killed during the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. They jumped into Holland on Sept. 17 of that year, as part of Operation Market Garden, designed to open a route from Eindhoven north to Arnhem. Expecting to be on the ground for a week, they ended up there for nearly three months.
The original intent of the mission was to take a bridge and hold it until the tanks arrived. Resistance was tough, and on a planned rest away from the front, Hashey and his fellow soldiers found themselves in the middle of one of the key battles of the war.
“We weren’t sure what country we were in,” Hashey said. They had little ammunition, having left the front lines. But they soon found out both where they were and what kind of firepower they would need: The Germans broke through Allied lines on both sides of the town of Bastogne, Belgium, surrounding Hashey and his comrades.
The men formed a circle, with the artillery in the center, and fought off repeated German attacks for 10 days before they were able to reconnect with Allied forces.
Hashey remembers how close the battles were. Had the Germans attacked from more than one point simultaneously, he said, the artillery would have been too weak to repel the attacks, and “they would have had us all for prisoners of war.”
After the soldiers broke the siege, they went immediately on the offensive, fighting their way up the road to the town of Foy, where Hashey was wounded in action and evacuated for treatment.
He returned to Belgium in 1994 for the 50th anniversary of D-Day and went on a short drive to Foy. He saw the ridge he once climbed, but because they were all foot soldiers, “there’s no evidence that we were ever there,” he said.
The welcome he got, though, was evidence enough. In addition to the medal from the Queen of the Netherlands, there was an amazing parade. “Three hundred thousand people came to watch us walk through a town,” Hashey said, beaming.
The road to stardom
Such attention wasn’t what he expected. After the war, he became a swimming instructor and sports director, working at military bases all over Europe and in Asia. He even taught West Point cadets and Special Forces troops how to swim and fight in the water.
When he retired from the service in 1963, he got a job with the American Red Cross, teaching swimming around the country. He retired recently from his job as director of water safety and first aid in Portland, but still teaches CPR a couple of days a week, which he has done since CPR was developed in 1971.
For his dedication, he was made a commodore in the Commodore Longfellow Society, named after the founder of the American Red Cross swimming and lifeguarding program, in what he said was one of the proudest moments of his life. Next week he will present the first Lester A. Hashey Award for Teaching Excellence to a Portland-area Red Cross teacher.
Hashey never thought his experience on the ground in Europe in 1944 would end up as a big story. But World War II historian Stephen Ambrose changed that. Ambrose, who died at age 66 earlier this week, “was a great guy,” Hashey said.
Ambrose spent hours and hours interviewing each of the men in Hashey’s unit in a hotel room during the reunion, and wrote a book, “Band of Brothers.” Actor and director Tom Hanks took the book and made a docudrama miniseries for HBO about the men of Easy Company, including Hashey.
The story has attracted attention from all over the world. The unit just had a reunion, which was attended by over 300 people, more than triple the largest reunion attendance before. He and his buddies sat at a long table and in two and a half hours, Hashey estimates, signed over 1,000 copies of Ambrose’s book.
Hashey is clearly proud of his accomplishments and said that being a paratrooper is one of the things he is most proud of, along with being a commodore. He met a goal he had when he was young, and it gave him the confidence to “do anything” with his life, despite difficult beginnings.
“Back in the Depression days things were tough. When I quit school, nobody told me that was a stupid thing to do,” Hashey said.
Even that has now been remedied. A couple of weeks ago, Portland High School granted him a diploma, under a program that allows veterans who dropped out to be awarded diplomas now.
What he did instead of high school may make for better storytelling, though. Looking at a photo from the war, he remembers every detail. He and a buddy were spending the night in the top of a windmill near the Rhine River and could smell someone cooking beef nearby. He convinced his friend to come downstairs with him to get some food.
Just when they reached the bottom of the stairs, two shells hit the windmill. When they returned to their sleeping site, Hashey’s sleeping bag had large holes in it, and his pack was destroyed. “My toothpaste was blown up,” Hashey said.
That 1944 photo reminds him that every moment is lucky. “I almost got killed in this windmill,” he said. “If we had been one minute later. . . ”
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