Ltc Usa (Ret.) William H. Springer

ALEXANDRIA, VA & BANGOR - LTC USA (Ret.) William H. Springer, 83, died peacefully at his home in Alexandria, Virginia on January 25, 2021, following a long illness. Bill was born in Bangor, Maine on August 2, 1937, the youngest child of Paul Clayton Springer and Morita Pickard Springer. He graduated from Bangor High School in 1955. He then attended the University of Maine at Orono, where he met his wife Christine Peterka. He graduated in 1959 with his B.A. and as a distinguished ROTC military graduate. Deferring his U.S. Army commission, Bill received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and attended Yale University graduate school, earning his M.A. in 1960 and his Ph.D. in 1965 in History. From 1966-1969, Bill taught at University of Massachusetts Amherst as an Assistant Professor of History. In 1969, he returned to military service and began a long career of travel and intelligence assignments with the U.S. Army, including two tours of duty in Vietnam, the Foreign Area Officer Program in India, U.S. Army Command and Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Army General Staff-Political Military Division dealing with the Iran hostage crisis, and U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida as principal analyst for the Iran-Iraq War. Much of his career as an Intelligence Officer was spent with the Defense Intelligence Agency, early on as an India Analyst, then, beginning in 1984, in the Directorate for Estimates Division on South Asia. He retired from the Army in 1988 and continued to work as a civilian for the DIA, eventually as Chief of Southern Asia Division. Bill retired in January 2001, but was called back to work at the DIA following 9/11 and served for another year as a Senior Intelligence Officer on the Iraqi Task Force, fully retiring at the end of 2002.
Bill was well known for his sense of humor and was able to find the funny in any situation. He loved music, art, and books and possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of European History. Travel and nature photography were his greatest interests, and he enjoyed traveling all over the world with his wife, Christine, especially to South Asia, Africa, and Europe. He also went on his own more “intense” photographic journeys, including Indonesia to capture Komodo dragons, and Churchill on Hudson Bay to photograph polar bears. Of that trip, Bill noted that not only was it hard to tell one polar bear from another, it was exceedingly hard to tell one gray-bearded photographer in khakis from another. Despite his travels, he remained deeply rooted in his home state of Maine, returning frequently for summers at East Grand Lake and Acadia. A diehard baseball fan, he spent each season faithfully following his then-long-suffering Boston Red Sox and his adopted Washington Nationals home team.
Bill is survived by his wife of 57 years, Christine P. Springer; daughter, Katherine Volin and husband, Richard of Falls Church, Virginia; daughter, Kimberley Springer and wife, Michele Aghassi of Brookline, Massachusetts; three adored grandchildren, Jack, Sam, and Marcelle; along with numerous nieces and nephews, and his friend and caregiver Wendolyn Sevdalis.
In addition to his parents, Bill was predeceased by his sisters, Diana S. Gordon, Jacqueline S. Sprague, and Joanne S. Perry and their husbands, Harry Gordon, Richard Sprague, and Charles Perry.
Burial at Mt. Hope Cemetery in Bangor and a memorial service will be held later in 2021. Gifts in his memory may be made at the World Wildlife Fund online at supprt.worldwildlife.org/donate or to Inova’s Life With Cancer Program, c/o Inova Health Foundation, 8110 Gatehouse Road, Suite 200 East, Falls Church, VA 22042-1210. Condolences to the family may be expressed at Brookingssmith.com.