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 John A. Vecchiolla
John A. Vecchiolla was born in New York July 6, 1926. In Rye his family lived at 124 Maple Ave and were members of the Church of the Resurrection.
He lived with his father, Micheal Vecchiolla, his mother, Lucia, his younger brothers, Anthony, Leonard, Micheal Jr, Daniel, and one sister, Laura. Both parents were both born in Italy, while all the children were born in New York.
Growing up in Rye, John was a Rye High School Graduate, Class of 1944. In high school he was a member of the National Honor Society, Fingerprints Club, a Junior Coach and was invoved in many more activities.
John served with the 11th Airborne Division in the South Pacific from 1944 to 1946.
 Held in reserve in the United States for the first half of 1944, in June the division was transferred to the Pacific Theater of Operations. Upon arrival it entered a period of intense training and acclimatization, and by November was judged combat-ready. The 11th Airborne saw its first action on the island of Leyte in the Philippines, but in a traditional infantry role.
In January 1945 the division took part in the Battle of Luzon. The two glider infantry regiments again operated as conventional infantry, securing a beachhead before fighting their way inland. The parachute infantry regiment was held in reserve for several days before conducting the division's first airborne operation, a combat drop on the Tagaytay Ridge.
 Reunited, the division participated in the Liberation of Manila, and two companies of divisional paratroopers conducted an audacious raid on the Los Baños internment camp, liberating two thousand civilians.
The 11th Airborne's last combat operation of World War II was in the north of Luzon around Aparri, in aid of combined American and Philippine forces who were battling to subdue the remaining Japanese resistance on the island.
After his discharge, John earned a bachelor's at Yale University in 1950 and received his medical degree at Columbia University in 1954.
He had served as the student health physician for the School of Nursing at St. Francis from 1959 to 1963. John, who served his internship and residency at Boston City Hospital from 1954 to 1956, completed a research fellowship in cardiology in 1957.
He also taught at the House of the Good Samaritan, Harvard Medical School, in Boston. He finished his medical training at St. Francis in 1958 as chief medical resident. John was a member of the Hartford,state and American medical associations, and was a former member of the board of directors of the Hartford Heart Association.
Dr. John A. Vecchiolla, a private practitioner in the Hartford area for years, died Thursday January 10, 1991 at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford. He was 64 and lived in Granby. He was a former resident of West Hartford.
At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Riley Vecchiolla of Granby; his daughter, Andrea Dillon Vecchiolla of West Hartford; his son, Christopher J. Vecchiolla of Miami; and three brothers, Michael and Anthony Vecchiolla, both of Port Chester, N.Y., and Daniel Vecchiolla of Portland, Ore.
A Mass of Christian burial was celebrated in St. Peter Claver Church, Pleasant Street, West Hartford.
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