Marine Veteran Sounds Nightly Taps at Hawk’s Nest Beach

OLD LYME, CT – Nine o’clock means lights out for the U.S. Marine Corps, and for the past two and a half years, it’s heralded lights out for the residents of Hawk’s Nest Beach.

That’s when Marine veteran Tom Peters, 85, emerges from his Center Beach Avenue front door to play taps.

Across the street, neighbor Bill Boughton can set his clock by the nightly ritual. Instead, he sets an alarm three minutes ahead of time so he doesn’t miss it.

“Every night,” Boughton said. “Seven days a week for two and a half years.”

Boughton said he was the one who invited Hawk’s Nest Beach residents to gather on Tuesday, the 251st anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps, for the taping of a Fox 61 news segment about the nightly ritual.

About 20 neighbors answered the call, listening from the Peters’ front lawn as Tom played an 11 a.m. rendition of taps. His wife, Donna Peters, was behind him, just inside the screen door.

It’s where she stands every night, according to Boughton.

“So it’s done as a couple,” he said.

Mike Fava, who lives a block away in a house visible just over the rooftops, said he often steps outside to hear the plaintive sound that resonates year-round.

The melody carries differently when the summer cottages are empty and temperatures drop, according to Fava.

“In the winter, you have that stillness, that quietness,” he said. “And then at nine o’clock, he plays taps, and it just permeates.”  

Rocco Todaro said he can hear the bugle from his house at the end of the street if he walks to the end of his driveway.

The sound never fails to remind him of his father’s funeral at Village Cemetery in Wethersfield, where the stark notes sounded for the World War II U.S. Army veteran in 2013.

“I love it,” Todaro said. “But it makes me sad, because I remember when my dad died.”

Tom on Tuesday said his impromptu tradition began in 2024 on Memorial Day. He had been playing taps at the graves of deceased members of the Marine Corps League’s Thames River Detachment #1334 when he came home with the bugle, and an idea.

He sent a text message to his neighbors promising “a special treat” at 9 p.m.

“Be outside,” he wrote.

About 20 people showed up that night, too.

Now, he sends text messages to announce the name of departed veterans he’s honoring each night, along with their year of death. He said most of the veterans are associated with the Thames River detachment or Hawk’s Nest Beach.

“It’s the least that I can do,” he said. “It’s a small thing compared to the sacrifice that others have made, and are making.”

On Thanksgiving Day in 1961, Tom was about halfway through his four years of military service when he met a girl named Donna at a dance. The festivities followed a basketball game between Norwich Free Academy and a team of Marines from the Naval Submarine Base in Groton.

Donna had graduated from the high school that spring; Tom was serving in the submarine base’s military police unit.

“She was wearing a very nice black dress,” Tom said. “She had pearls on. Her hair was perfect. She was the prettiest girl in the building, no question.” 

The couple married 63 years ago. Donna said her husband likes to describe them as “63 happy years.” Based on his math, that’s 43 for him and 20 for her.

“If he keeps it up, I might give him 42 and 21,” Donna said.

The couple said they moved to Old Lyme for the beach and for the education that the local school system offered their two daughters.

They have three grandchildren.

Tom estimated there were about three year-round residents living in the beach area when they moved in almost 50 years ago. On Tuesday, residents of the growing neighborhood arrived on foot, in golf carts and in vehicles.

Terri Verillo, who lives one street over, said she can’t typically hear the bugle unless she drives by at the right time. But she’s come out for taps through the years when text messages go out urging residents to gather.

One of those occasions, according to Tom, was a flag dedication at the end of the road to memorialize a neighbor who had loved the neighborhood.

Donna recalled the flag was made in the United States and a local resident welded the flagpole.

“Everybody rallied around,” Tom said. “I played taps.”

After the neighbors and television crew had left Tuesday, Tom explained he settled on 9 p.m. because that’s when lights go out on Marine Corps bases.

Donna laughed at the idea of the beach community as a military installation.

“I guess I’m with the general,” she joked, then turned to her husband. “What am I, if you’re the general?”

Tom smiled.

“You’re the commander in chief,” he said.

Editor’s Note: Click here for the Fox 61 news segment.