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Army veteran receives high school diploma

Wilton man who quit school as teen to join the army surprised at his 90th birthday celebration

By Jessie Salisbury - Correspondent | May 27, 2018

WILTON – It’s never too late.

When Lloyd Adams was presented with his high school diploma at his 90th birthday party recently, he was flabbergasted. It was the last thing on his mind.

He’d had a good life, he said, a 40-plus year career with the Boston and Maine Railroad, all without that diploma.

But his granddaughter heard of a policy at Technical High School in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he had attended, and persisted through the paper work.

“The very last thing I ever expected,” he said.

In 1944, Adams was 16. He quit school, lied about his age, and joined the U.S. Army.

“I think they overlooked a lot of people who weren’t old enough,” he said.

By that time in the war, they needed people, he noted.

After basic training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he was sent to Australia, where he joined the group being trained for the invasion of Okinawa.

“We were to support the 7th Army Division in the invasion,” he said.

He described briefly the fierce fighting on the island.

The Battle of Okinawa, April to June 1945, also known as Operation Iceberg, was the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific, resulting in 50,000 Allied casualties and 100,000 Japanese casualties. It was the last invasion of the war.

“We served as a rear guard to the engineers,” Adams said. “We had a tough time doing it, but we did it.”

When the war ended in August, he said, “we thought we were going to Hawaii to be let out.”

Instead, he ended up in Korea as part of the occupation force. He didn’t get home until 1948.

That was hard, he said. They had no equipment for winter survival and many of the men, including Adams, suffered from frostbite. That didn’t bother him for a long time, he said, but he now has little feeling in his fingertips.

While still in school and living in Springfield, Adams had a part-time job with the railroad. After trying various jobs, that is where he ended up. He trained for, and worked as a dispatcher for about 17 years in Greenfield, Massachusetts. To dispatch, he said, “you have to memorize 1,200 rules, I had the whole Fitchburg Division.”

After retiring in 1990, he and his late wife lived for many years in Nashua and then retired to the Finger Lakes Region of New York.

“I stayed there until my daughter thought I shouldn’t be living alone and brought me here,” Adams said.

He moved to Wilton in 2015.

“I’m blessed,” he said. “I’ve got my health and can do what I want. I tell my grandson, take care of your health.”

He is currently recovering from a fractured hip – the result of tripping over his dog – but gets around very well with a cane or walker.

His philosophy, he said, is “Any job you take, and you put your mind to do it, you’ll succeed. People don’t do that anymore.”

Few people spend 40 years at one job as he did at the Boston and Maine.

He belongs to a cribbage club in Milford, and plays sat several other places. He also enjoys other card games.

But having his diploma is nice, he said, “even if it was 70 years too late.”

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