Joseph G. Angelino

In his 23 years of service as a United States Marine starting in 1985, Joseph G. Angelino achieved the Corp’s highest enlisted rank of Sergeant Major. 

In August 2008 Sergeant Major Angelino retired from the Marine Corps but not before valiantly serving three combat tours in the Middle East and twice earning the Purple Heart medal, America’s oldest military decoration still awarded to members of the Armed Forces.

A native resident of Norwich in Chenango County, Angelino served in 1991’s Operation Desert Storm as a Tank Commander. In 2003 he participated in the invasion of Iraq as an Infantry First Sergeant in the area of Nasiriyah, Iraq. It was in September 2005 that Angelino was wounded by enemy forces first by a roadside bomb and again just 25 days later during a rocket and mortar attack on his base camp at Habbaniyah, Iraq.

In 2007, at a Marine Corps installation just a short distance away from General George Washington’s Continental Army Headquarters in Newburgh, NY, in a ceremony attended by family members, guests and 250 fellow Marines, Brigadier General David Papek, Commanding General of the 4th Marine Air Wing awarded Sergeant Major Angelino two Purple Heart medals.

“I am truly humble to wear the same decoration that others who are much, much worse off than I am also wear,” said Angelino at the place where Washington himself established the Purple Heart Medal in 1782.

Sergeant Major Angelino’s service to community hasn’t stopped with his Marine Corps service. Today he serves as Chief of Police in the City of Norwich, as an instructor at the Broome County Law Enforcement Academy, is a life member of the VFW, the American Legion and the Military Order of the Purple Heart and is affiliated with the NYS Association of Chiefs of Police, the Chenango County Traffic Safety Board and the Alternatives to Incarceration Board. He is currently the President of the Northeast Classic Car Museum and a member of the Board of Directors of GHS Federal Credit Union in Binghamton, NY.