In the service: Windham resident John Postemski, 81, enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1953 at 18, dropping out of high school as the Korean War wound down. He spent a year at Fort Dix, N.J. where he made the base’s rifle team, winning first place with the M-1 Garand rifle. He served as a marksman instructor, teaching the basics of rifle and hand grenade use to recruits, many of which would be shipped to Korea. After his request to serve in Korea was denied, Postemski was re-assigned to Iceland where he helped guard jet fuel depots. During his tour, Postemski was named the post’s “Best Guard” after challenging an officer for carrying a cigarette lighter on the base, something the post’s “no-spark” rule prohibited. Nine months later, he took his first plane ride back to the states and was discharged as a corporal having also completed his GED requirements.
After the service: Soon after leaving the Army, Postemski began working for the state of Connecticut, first as a tree-climber with the state highway department. He spent 33 years with the state Department of Transportation, eventually rising to head of the maintenance operations department. During the blizzard of 1978, Postemski was asked by the department commissioner to help convince Gov. Ella T. Grasso to shut down Connecticut’s highways ahead of the massive three-day storm that dumped two feet of snow across the region. Shortly after his meeting with Grasso, the governor closed state roads to to traffic — the first time such an edict was issued. Postemski also volunteered with the Windham Center Fire Department for more than 50 years, serving several years as the department’s chief.
Quotable: “I’m absolutely glad I enlisted, which I did just because I thought it was the right thing to do. One of the biggest qualities the military teaches you is respect — you can’t get that from anywhere else. And those other qualities, like being able to supervise, stays with you when you get out. My philosophy has always been to be aggressive and to be honest. Unlike in the military, there’s not enough common sense being used in the world today. That blizzard back in ’78 was a huge deal. I didn’t get home for three or four days. But those roads needed to be shut down.”
— John Penney
