A Webster native, Jim Reed Morrison is the son of another veteran,  James Morrison Sr. a WWII Marine who survived the sinking of the USS Wasp, that was torpedoed and sunk in the Battle of the Solomon Islands (Guadalcanal) in 1942. 

A product of the Webster School System, he graduated from Bartlett High School in 1966. He received a three year scholarship to Worcester Industrial Technical Institute encouraged by William Branch, Bartlett’s guidance counselor. Jim has been most grateful for the gift that changed his life.

Soon after graduation at WITI in June 1969, Jim joined the United States Air Force. On June 15, he was inducted and on a plane to San Antonio Texas for Basic Training. After seven weeks in the blazing heat, he was on his way to Wichita Falls on the Red River for Technical School training on the Wright 3350 Super Compound Reciprocating Radial Engine. This amazing engine powered the Super Constellation C-121, the Fairchild AC-119K Stinger and the mighty A1Sky Raider. Jim also maintained the Pratt and Whitney R- 1830 Twin Wasp that powered the iconic DC-3, C-47 ‘Spooky” Gun-Ships.

Jim spent the remaining 3 years of his enlistment in the war zones of Thailand and Viet Nam. He is particularly proud of his service on the Laotian border at Nakhon-Phanom Royal Thai AirForce

Base on the Mekong River, our closest base to Hanoi. The Mission of 56-FMS was to support the Laotian War effort and to rescue pilots shot down over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Jim also spent time in Danang, Vietnam’s Rocket Valley, as an engine mechanic on the AC-119K Stinger GunShip.

It was there in Danang that Jim witnessed the enactment of the Cease Fire Agreement on Jan. 27th, 1973, that ended the American Air War in Viet Nam. 

After discharge from duty Jim returned to school to pick up his Bachelors to teach high school math and sciences. He met his wife Deborah Liseno at Worcester State College. Jim taught for a year at the American College in Cairo, Egypt. 

After returning home, Jim taught music in the Worcester public school system.

He later returned to Mechanical Design, and spent eight years at Alden Hydraulic Lab in Holden and five more at the Alden Lab in Westboro. He worked, documenting a Thyroid Imaging System in Sudbury at Scientific Enterprises. Jim later did Mechanical Design work for Eastern Acoustics Works in Whitinsville for 25 years.

Through it all, Jim continued to play for the Pulaski Brass Band that he joined in 1961 at thirteen years of age. He remembers attending a burial when he saw the Webster- Dudley Veterans Honor Guard conduct their burial ritual, Jim says, “they were kind enough to let me bugle for them.” That was 20 years ago and Jim is still playing Taps at Military Funerals.