News

June 26, 2008

Voice of area veterans silenced

By Andrew M. Seder aseder@timesleader.com
Times Leader Staff Writer
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Bill Smith, the longtime voice of veterans throughout the Wyoming Valley, died Wednesday at his Wilkes-Barre home at the age of 83. Those who knew the Times Leader Views on Veterans columnist remembered him as a loving family man and a non-stop advocate for veterans.

“Patriotism was his middle name,” said fellow veteran and friend for 40 years Neno Sartini. “We lost a friend. The veterans did. The country did. … It will be hard replacing him.”

Sartini, like thousands of others, opened The Times Leader each Sunday to read the column Smith penned each week without fail since Nov. 1, 1987.

“Readers have grown accustomed to picking up the newspaper to read Bill Smith,” said Richard L. Connor, editor and publisher of The Times Leader. “As much as he was a valued member of our newspaper family he was also thought of in similar fashion by our readers and the community.”

Smith’s son Gene cried while recalling his father.

“My dad, for me personally, never missed a game, a performance, whatever it was. Same for my brother and my sister. He was always there to support us and to give us wisdom,” Gene Smith said.

Smith said the column was a highlight of his father’s week. When Bill Smith dropped off his copy in the newsroom, it was a weekly highlight for those who knew him.

“Every Monday like clockwork he’d come in at 1:30,” said Times Leader Community News Editor Michelle Harris, who knew the columnist since the early 1980s. “You could set your watch by it. He never missed a column. Not once. He was such a dedicated person. He taught me so much about the word dedication.”

Off to war

Smith was born May 17, 1925, the only child of Frances and Peter Smith of Swoyersville. At age 16, and with World War II in full force, Smith was eager to fight for his country.

“You wanted to go, but you didn’t want to go,” Smith told Times Leader Managing Editor Joe Butkiewicz for a May 18 story. “The patriotism was overflowing in Swoyersville. I didn’t want to get left behind.” He was inducted into the Army on June 15, 1943.

Butkiewicz said Smith’s column was appreciated by the high veteran population in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

“Bill was a great advocate for veterans and men and women currently serving in the military. He cared about his community and he loved his country. He was extremely dedicated to his weekly column. The Times Leader has been lucky to have him for the past 20 years,” Butkiewicz said.

Smith was married to the former Mollie Hughes for 59 years. Together they raised two sons, William Jr. and Gene, and daughter Nancy.

Though his columns often touched upon the military and his beloved country, it was a Father’s Day edition column earlier this year that was a shining example of how Smith could write about life, Harris said. The column touched on his relationship with Nancy, or as he calls her “Daddy’s little girl.”

Those kinds of columns, Harris said, were the ones that got people thinking. “He just knew how to strike a chord in a person’s heart. There was always this passion.”

News hits VA Center hard

Gene Molino, associate director at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Plains Township, said he was “honored just to have known Bill Smith.” He said the news of Smith’s passing was hitting those at the VA Center hard. Smith had membership in and served on the boards of multiple veterans organizations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 283, Kingston, and the American Legion Post in Ashley. He actively lobbied local, state and federal leaders for veterans rights and was a valued asset

“He was an ombudsman,” Molino said.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Philadelphia, whose office worked with Smith on numerous veterans issues, issued a statement lamenting Smith’s passing.

“Bill Smith’s writings always revealed a keen understanding of local and national veterans’ issues. He was a pillar in the community, and he and his column will be greatly missed.”

His care and concern for veterans left a lasting impression on all who knew him personally and those who knew Smith solely through what they read each Sunday.

“He prided himself in that column,” William Smith Jr. said. Not only was it important for his father to get the information and the tales out to the public, Gene Smith said it was just as important for the community, especially the veteran community, to have it out there.

“There were guys he never met, veterans, who would call him out of the blue and he’d be on the phone with them for hours,” Gene Smith said. “They had no family and he spoke their language. He would help out any way he could, and he did it tirelessly.”

“He always wanted to help. He always had time for you, no matter what,” Sartini said.

Whether you met Bill Smith once or 100 times, his son William said, “who he was was what you saw.” Those who knew him said he had a keen sense of humor, a reverence for the American flag and was someone who told you what was on his mind. And what was often on that mind were ways to make the lives of veterans better.

Andrew M. Seder, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 570-829-7269.

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