Donald Hillian is a navy vet. On November 11 2011, Veterans' Day, he took the day off. It was to be a day of quiet reflection for him, a day to remember the members of the armed forces who had died in the line of duty.

On that day, Donald didn't do anything special. He did normal things that people do every day. He woke up and went out for breakfast. He got a haircut. At 11 am, he probably observed a moment of silence. Then he stopped at the store to buy a lottery ticket. He bought a quick picket ticket for Connecticut Lottery's Classic Lotto game. The day was uneventful. That night he went to sleep.

The next morning, Donald Hillian went to the store and scanned his Classic Lotto ticket in the ticket checker. He won! Donald won the jackpot of $1.5 million!

It's kind of fitting that a navy vet wins the lottery on Remembrance Day. On Monday November 14, Donald claimed his prize at Connecticut Lottery headquarters. "I still feel like I'm dreaming" is all he could say!

The Clasic Lotto game is a 6/44 game, meaning that you have to match 6-out-of-44 numbers to win the jackpot. The odds of matching all 6 numbers are approximately 1-in-7-million.  The winning numbers for the November 11th drawing were 1, 4, 6, 24, 29, 34.

At the time of his win, Donald Hillian lived in Hartford, Connecticut. He said that he wished his mother was still alive so that he could share the winnings with her. She passed away in 2007.