DOB/DOD: January 5, 1975 (New Haven, CT) – November 26, 2006; 31 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married Karen K. Nixon (1976-) on July 30, 2005 in Tarrant, Texas
LOCAL ADDRESS: West Road; Salem
ENLISTMENT: October 5, 1994
MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY: 21B; Combat Engineer
UNIT: Company E, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division; Fort Hood, Texas
FAMILY: Born to Richard W. [retired Navy Chief Petty Officer] (1944-) and Sharon Norton Hamill (1949-). One triplet brother, Jeffrey T. (1975-). Two sisters, one of triplets, Stephanie E. Hamill de Lencastre (1975-) and Tonya M. Hamill Taday (1972-).
DECORATIONS: Awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart Medal, Army Commendation Medal with device, Army Achievement Medal with three devices, Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal with device, Kosovo Campaign Medal with two devices, Iraq Campaign Medal with device, Global War on Terrorism (Expeditionary) Medal, Global War on Terrorism (Service) Medal, Army Overseas Ribbon, and NATO ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) Medal – Kosovo.
CIRCUMSTANCES: Died of injuries sustained when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detonated near his vehicle in Baghdad. Also killed in this incident:
Army 1st Lieutenant David M. Fraser; Houston, Texas
Army Private Joshua C. Burrows; Bossier City, Louisiana
Graduated from East Lyme High School; Class of 1993.
Richard Hamill graduated from the University of Connecticut, Class of 1998. He was a member of the ROTC program at UConn while there. Jonathan Bartolotta, Program Coordinator, Army ROTC, University of Connecticut, contributed the two photos below.
From The Day (New London, CT) on November 29, 2006
A FAMILY REMEMBERS ITS FALLEN SOLDIER
SALEM — Captain Jason Hamill e-mailed his mother from Iraq on January 17. The Army officer had been in the country for nearly two months and told his mother, Sharon, that he couldn’t provide specifics about his job. But his mission involved clearing routes and trying to catch the AIF members, or Anti-Iraqi Force members, who planted explosives. “The hard part,” he wrote, “is finding the bombs.” Sharon Hamill paused while reading the e-mail aloud from a laptop computer at her kitchen table Tuesday afternoon. “Well, he didn’t find one,” she said, then continued to read. Hamill, 31, was killed Sunday when a roadside bomb detonated near the vehicle in which he was riding. The explosion, which happened about 9 a.m. Baghdad time also killed two other soldiers. Governor M. Jodi Rell on Tuesday ordered all U.S. and state flags in Connecticut to be lowered to half-staff to honor Hamill. Flags will remain at half-staff until Hamill is interred. Hamill was a 1993 graduate of East Lyme High School and grew up in Salem, where his parents, Richard and Sharon, still live. He was one in a set of triplets, including a brother, Jeffrey, and a sister, Stephanie. Tonya is an older sister. A captain in the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas, Hamill was a company commander in charge of about 70 soldiers. The unit was deployed to Iraq in early December 2005 and was scheduled to return home any day when Hamill and the others were killed. A spokesman at Fort Hood said Tuesday that members of the 4th Brigade have been arriving home daily and that about 60 percent of the division has returned. He said the entire division will be home by Christmas. Hamill’s body arrived on Tuesday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where it will remain until funeral arrangements are complete. Richard Hamill said his son once said that if killed in battle, he wanted to be buried with full military honors. “That’s the kind of path we’re talking (about),” he said. Jason Hamill’s enthusiasm for his new house in Texas was irrepressible. He built a stone patio and showed a flair for landscaping. “He put in a palm tree,” said his sister, Stephanie. She laughed and shrugged. “In Texas.” “He used to call me all the time and rave. ‘My flowers are doing great, my roses are doing great,’” Sharon Hamill said. “He was concerned, going to Iraq, who was going to take care of it,” Richard Hamill said. A life of active duty meant Jason had lived in Europe and Kosovo before landing in Texas, where he met his wife, Karen, who was introduced to him by Jason’s aunt, Beth Lynn, and where he bought the house. “Texas was his first home,” brother Jeffrey Hamill said by phone Tuesday. In January 2005, the Hamill family traveled to Texas for the triplets’ 30th birthday. The pack included Richard and Sharon, spouses and kids, Aunt Beth in Texas, and Aunt Mary from Chicago, plus two high school friends who went along to surprise Jason. “People slept on floors, on top of each other,” Sharon Hamill said. “We were smart and got a hotel room.” The family had planned a similar party for this January. Jason and Karen already had their plane tickets to fly to Connecticut, Richard Hamill said Tuesday. Jason Hamill’s military career began, in part, when he joined the ROTC program while attending the University of Connecticut. He started out studying engineering but ultimately graduated with a degree in economics, his family said. He accepted his commission upon college graduation in January 1998. That same day, he gave his father a silver dollar, part of an Army tradition of which Richard Hamill, a retired Navy man, was unaware. “I was enlisted, and officers used to pay enlisted men to shine their shoes,” Richard Hamill said, joking. “… So maybe he wanted me to shine his shoes.” In reality, said Lieutenant Colonel John Whitford, a spokesman for the Connecticut National Guard, tradition calls for the first person to salute the newly commissioned officer to be “coined.” Jeffrey Hamill said his brother became more outgoing after joining the Army and that he tried to take advantage of the travel that came with active duty. Jeffrey said he spent a week in Germany when Jason was stationed there. “That was fun,” he said. “I mean, the two of us just went around doing stupid things. We didn’t even know what we were going to do, so we’d be like, ‘Let’s drive to Heidelberg and see what’s up there.’ … We ended up touring the castle and just finding stupid things to do and meeting people.” Jason Hamill was the same way in high school, said a good friend, Jon Stadler. “We both liked to be adventurous, have a little fun, cause a little trouble,” said Stadler of East Lyme, who met Hamill at East Lyme High School when he was a sophomore and Hamill was a freshman. Stadler, one of the first friends the Hamill family mentions, said he wasn’t sure whether he could be considered Hamill’s best friend. “I think Jason had a lot of close friends,” he said. “He was a special person in that way. He would always make everyone feel they were very important to him. “If you ever needed him, he was the first guy there, without question. I shared that relationship with him, as well as a couple of other buddies. I don’t know if he had one best friend in particular.” Richard Hamill said he doesn’t want to make political statements about the war. “(Jason) believed very strongly that what he was doing made a difference,” he said, adding that his son reported to his family that what he saw on the news and what he saw in person were often two different things. “So, he saw a disconnect between the media and what was actually occurring.” Jeffrey Hamill said Tuesday that he and his brother disagreed about the war, which Jeffrey said he had roundly opposed from the start. “That’s another hard part for me,” Jeffrey said. “I feel like I lost my brother to a lost cause.” Sharon Hamill wears a green camouflage wristband bearing the unit’s nickname: “Armor Hounds of Hell.” She’s worn it since about May, when Jason’s wife sent batches of them to friends and family, part of a fund-raising effort for the unit. It dangled around Sharon Hamill’s wrist on Tuesday, and she would snap it from time to time. She trolled through photos on the computer of Jason at his wedding, of familiar websites, of old e-mails. The Hamill family wanted to talk about Jason, they said Tuesday, to honor his memory. “I think it would be important (to him),” Stephanie Hamill said, “(to let people know) that he believed in what he was doing.”
From obits.gazette.com
I will never forget you. Not a day passes that I don’t think about meeting you and chatting about the changes in the UConn campus and ROTC program. I will never forget what you did for the country, the dramatic impact you and your unit had on the battlefield over the course of your time there, and the selflessness you displayed in setting us up for success as the incoming unit. You were an amazing individual and Soldier, and you deserved the chance to share your positive influence on this world for much longer than it allowed you. You’re the motivation behind everything I strive for.
— Rob Pellegrini
From The Day on May 27, 2021
By Elizabeth Regan
Plaque dedicated at East Lyme High School in memory of fallen soldier
EAST LYME — Stephanie Hamill’s voice shook as she turned away from the plaque emblazoned with her brother’s name to address a small group assembled Wednesday in the front hallway of East Lyme High School. “Thank you, everybody. This is really nice,” she said, the simple, quavering words filling the alcove before a small student orchestral ensemble took over with notes just as mournful. The new plaque was dedicated that afternoon by the school’s Veterans Day Committee at a ceremony rendered intimate by the school’s COVID-19 restrictions. Roughly 25 students, teachers, and members of the community — plus members of the high school band — came out to honor the memory of 1993 graduate Army Captain Jason Hamill. Hamill was 31 when he was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2006. He grew up in Salem. Assistant Principal Henry Kydd, a member of the committee, told attendees that the project had its origins in a speech given by Hamill’s friend, Elizabeth Stadler-Rheaume, at a Veterans Day assembly several years ago. “Jason’s story resonated with our student body. They listened, they put themselves in his shoes, and his story visibly moved them,” Kydd said. Describing the plaque as the committee’s effort to do “something more” to permanently honor Hamill, Kydd said the members hope it will be the beginning of a Wall of Honor to recognize all East Lyme High School alumni who go on to serve in the military. Stadler-Rheaume was at the dedication with Stephanie Hamill, representing family and friends. Jason and Stephanie, alongside brother Jeffrey, made a set of triplets with one older sister. Parents Richard and Sharon Hamill now live out of state. Jason Hamill married his wife, Karen, in 2005. They lived in Texas. Stadler-Rheaume said Jason Hamill’s loss was immeasurable. “He was just little Jay Hamill that went to school here, but he truly went on to make decisions that changed the world,” she said. His sister described someone who didn’t want to be the guy who went in on a mission and took over. “He really wanted to do well by the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan when he served there and Serbia,” Stephanie Hamill said. “It was really important to him to get to know the locals, try to understand what was going on.” That’s the kind of legacy that science teacher Lori Singer, a mainstay of the Veterans Day committee, wants to convey through the plaque. “This is a school that very much values academic and athletic prowess, and I’d like to remind our kids that is not what a hero is,” Singer said. “Academic and athletic prowess are wonderful and should be recognized, but this is a whole different level.” Singer said she wasn’t sure why the school didn’t have a plaque up already to honor Hamill but added, “At least we have it now.” History teacher Matthew LaConti, also on the committee, said he didn’t know why it took so long, either. “I wish there were a better answer,” he said. “But this has been the highlight of the year.” The black and gray plaque, which Singer said cost about $2,000, was funded by donations from a host of faculty, staff, and student groups. It described Hamill as a “proud Salem resident, model Viking student, and valued member of the class of 1993.” The inscription identifies him as a member of the varsity wrestling and track teams and a four-year member of the Viking Band. Memorialized on the plaque is the fact that Jason volunteered for one last mission before he was scheduled to return home from his tour in Iraq so he could ensure leadership was handed down responsibly to his replacement. It was during that mission that he died. “The East Lyme High School community will forever remember Jason’s sacrifice and seek to ensure his spirit of selflessness is instilled in future generations of Viking students,” the inscription reads. Kydd, who works with students in 10th and 12th grades in his role as assistant principal, said the goal at East Lyme High School is “to graduate good people, not just smart people.” Singer agreed. “Jason typifies good people,” she said.
Captain Hamill is buried in Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery, 2000 Mountain Creek Parkway, Dallas, Texas; Section 25, Site 163A.
