Donald Hewitt

Donald Harding Hewitt, known as “David,” to his friends and family, and “Doc” to those with whom he served, passed away after a long and eventful life on Wednesday February 18, 2015.’ He was born on June 29, 1929 to Edna and Charles Hewitt, a housewife and Boston police officer, respectively. He weighed a mere 1.5 pounds at birth and grew to be 6’3″. He learned to sail early, and navigated the waters of Boston Harbor while still a child. David joined the U.S. Navy, and he served in the Korean War as a navy corpsman attached to the 1st Marine Division in the Marine Unit commanded by the late John Chaffee who would later become Secretary of the Navy and a US Senator. He saw action at the Battle of the Pusan Perimeter, the Battle of Inchon, the Second Battle of Seoul, and the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. During his service in Korea, he received a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars with Valor Devices for bravery, and a Purple Heart for being, as he said, in the wrong place at the wrong time; in addition, his unit, the 1st Marine Division, received two Presidential Unit Citations, the equivalent of two Navy Crosses. After the Korean War, he continued to serve in the Navy, and was stationed in Guantanamo Bay for four years. During his four years there, he helped evacuate civilians during the Cuban Missile Crisis and, through a quirk of a quartermaster’s provisioning, subsisted on Swanson Chicken Pot Pies and Chocolate Ice Cream, a passion for which he oddly maintained for many years. After retiring from the Navy after twenty years’ service, he worked for the United States Post Office for 15 years. He moved back to New England and lived quietly in New Hampshire with his wife, Annemarie, for the past 35 years. David was known for his quick, incisive wit, his clarity of thought, and, most of all, his immense compassion and generosity. He is survived by his wife, son Charles, and daughter-in-law Lyrna, daughter Brooke, and son-in-law Ahmed, and grandsons Adam, Charles, and Philip, and granddaughters Samantha and Sofia.

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