Wayne man, 78, to receive Bronze Star

WAYNE – A U.S. Army veteran from Kennebec County was to be awarded the Bronze Star on Monday as part of his hometown’s Memorial Day observance.

For Richard Lincoln, 78, the honor comes 60 years after the actions that qualified him for the medal.

Lincoln inched his way from one end of Italy to the other with the Blue Devils of the Army’s 88th Infantry Division during World War II.

He earned a certificate from the Italian province of Pisa for his service in helping to liberate the city of Volterra on Nov. 9, 1944, in a battle in which the Blue Devils lost 100 men.

Lincoln keeps his certificate with a medal commemorating the liberation of Rome.

“I was marching through the center of Rome on my 19th birthday,” he said.

Lincoln, a first scout and message-center clerk, was recognized for his actions in Rome at the Arno River and in the North Apennines and Po Valley, receiving the European African Middle Eastern Theater Campaign Ribbon, three battle stars and the Good Conduct and Victory medals.

He remembers a lot of things from the war, including how to wedge dog tags into the teeth of a dead soldier to make sure he could be identified at the morgue. He has a scar on his thumb from the time he jumped into a culvert to avoid strafing from planes.

“I get nightmares once in a while,” Lincoln said. “I try to put it in the back of my mind.”

Television images of soldiers going door to door in Iraq remind him of his own combat experience, Lincoln said.

“All the stuff I see on Iraq on TV brings back memories of searching towns and crouching in crevices,” he said. “It was just slugging it out. It’s a tough life being an infantryman. A sharpshooter could bump you off.”

After the war, Lincoln went on the road as a manufacturer’s representative for some cigar makers.

“I traveled the state of Maine with a car full of cigars, and I didn’t smoke,” he said.

Lincoln and his wife, Nan, have two grown daughters, Elaine and Lisa, both of whom plan to join him for the presentation of his Bronze Star.