Captain’s bars travel across 3 generations

This Memorial Day, I’m thinking of three generations of U.S. Marines in the Towle family, although only one of the three is deceased.

Fred Towle, who was in the Junior ROTC program at Bangor High School, joined the Marines in 1941. Refused the first time around because he was underweight, he turned to chopping logs and eating a lot of bananas to build himself up.

He had figured on serving in Europe, but instead found himself with landing parties at Guadalcanal and Bougainville in the Pacific before being wounded on Guam in 1944. He returned to service at Iwo Jima and also served in Korea. He received two Purple Hearts.

Towle’s service included many years with the Explosive Ordnance Division, doing work that included defusing many types of ammunition – including chemical – from here to Japan. He died in 1988 of leukemia.

Fred was a Bangor boy, descended from the Irish Toole family that came first to Prince Edward Island. His military service is detailed by E. Louise (Smith) Towle, his wife, in “The Smiths of Madison County, Virginia and Their Ancestors.”

Their son Joseph enlisted in the Marines in 1962 and served as a radar technician and acting platoon commander in Vietnam. He later did flight training and went back to Vietnam as a fighter pilot.

Joseph’s son Jonathan also is a Marine and became a helicopter pilot.

In 2001, while on Okinawa, Jonathan was promoted to captain. His dad, Joseph, sent him his own captain’s bars, which originally had belonged to Jonathan’s grandfather Fred.

Jonathan Towle served in Kuwait in 2003, and Iraq in 2004. He earned his own Purple Heart on Veterans Day 2004 when the Cobra helicopter he was flying was hit by a surface-to-air missile. He landed the aircraft safely, saving not only the crew but nearby “friendly forces.” He now serves in Virginia and was promoted to major last year.

Three generations of U.S. Marines – one set of captain’s bars.

Today’s Memorial Day Parade in Bangor begins at 10:30 a.m. The parade starts on Exchange Street and finishes up at Davenport Park at the corner of Main and Cedar streets.

The program at Cole Land Transportation Museum, 405 Perry Road, begins at 1 p.m. It will include wreath-layings at the World War II, Vietnam and Purple Heart memorials on the grounds, and a USO-type show by the Hampden Academy jazz band.

Afterward, admission to the museum will be free.

One of the artifacts that caught my eye recently at the Cole museum is an honor roll from Eastern Maine General Hospital.

The rolls for World Wars I and II include a list for employees and a list for nurses. There might be some names that you know.

The museum is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Nov. 11 at 405 Perry Road, Bangor.

The Holden Veterans Memorial will be unveiled during ceremonies at 4 p.m. today near the gazebo at Holden Elementary School.

What’s remarkable about this memorial is that it is the service learning project of eighth-graders in SAD 63. It was inspired by the youngsters’ visit last fall to the Cole museum, where they interviewed veterans from various wars in the Ambassadors of Patriotism Program.

The eighth-graders from Holbrook Middle School call themselves the Kids of Liberty. That they are.

The numbers of World War II veterans are growing smaller by the day. My dad, Gayland Moore Jr., a motor mac in the U.S. Navy, died six years ago this month.

In January, we lost his brother, my uncle Carroll W. Moore of Abbot, who served in the Army Air Corps in World War II.

Thank a veteran today.

The Aroostook County Genealogical Society will hold its meeting at 4 p.m. in a special place today. Members will bring their rakes to clean up Corcoran Cemetery on River Road in Caribou. Good for them.

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402; or e-mail queries to familyti@bangordailynews.net.