Veteran keeps on giving as chaplain
By Doug Grindle Community Reporter

Marlborough - John Harrington has traveled a long road from his first desire to join the U.S. Army and his current position as the chaplain for the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), a road that has taken the Marlborough resident through three wars and two decades.

Harrington tried to join the military a few weeks after Pearl Harbor in December 1941, but was turned down by every service.

"They said I wasn't physically fit," Harrington said.

A tall, well-built man, he laughs about it now. It would take less than two years for Uncle Sam to change his mind.

"I got the greeting from the president," Harrington said. "I was drafted."

In the army, he was sent to Alaska for his first posting late in the war.

"I thought I was going over for the Battle of the Bulge [in Belgium] but I ended up in the Aleutians," he explained.

Harrington was attached to an outfit that serviced the runways of the airfield at Amchitka.

The storms in the Aleutians are legendary for their ferocity. The soldiers would string up ropes to prevent getting lost in the so-called williwaws.

"One [rope] to the orderly room, one to the chow hall and one to the outside latrines," he said.

After the war, Harrington left the Aleutians and the Army, but a few months later he decided to rejoin. It would be a fateful decision.

Harrington spent nine months in Panama, walking the jungles, assisting a topographical engineer outfit. His stint there left him with malaria.

By the spring of 1950, Harrington had re-enlisted. Two months later, the war in Korea began. Harrington, a staff sergeant, was pressed into service as a rifleman. On Sept. 4, 1950, his platoon took up a position on a hillside, waiting for the North Koreans to attack again. The platoon started taking rifle fire.

Harrington bent over to pick up a cigarette and a bullet whistled by.

"It went right past my head," he said.

In the attack, he was shot three times in the right leg, breaking his femur and injuring his lower leg and knee. That was just past noon.

"It was pretty much 6 at night when they took me down," he explained. "They put me on top of a tank and tied me down."

Harrington was moved to a hospital in Japan. From there he went by boat to the United States.

He spent six months at Chelsea Naval Hospital recuperating. By this time, Harrington was married to his wife, Marie. When he came back home he was wearing a cast from hip to ankle. He spent time recovering in bed upstairs. One day a rag caught fire downstairs. Marie called up to him, "You'd better get up, the house is on fire."

"You should have seen me hopping down the stairs," he said.

The fire was dowsed and the house was saved. Harrington was told he would never walk again but he worked at it and eventually the leg returned almost to normal.

Harrington returned to the army and served in New Jersey, England and Korea. He was offered a post in Germany but although Marie had patiently stood by during his previous postings, this time, she told him it was time to turn it down.

"Our daughter is going to start school, so you'd better come home and get out," she recalled saying.

But they were both stoic about their time apart.

"It's part of the job," he said. "You missed it [home and family] but it's got to be done."

The army called him back for a time for the war in Vietnam, giving Harrington the unusual distinction of serving in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. But enough was enough, and he left the service for the last time in 1963, to make a career working for the city of Marlborough as well as at Short's Funeral Home in the city.

When he got out in 1963, Harrington joined the DAV; several years ago, he became chaplain so that he could do more to help other veterans.

"I joined the DAV because it was something to do," he said.

Between that and the Knights of Columbus, Harrington keeps busy shuttling veterans to appointments and helping in many other ways.