My wife, Irene, and I have been living here at The Timbers for three years. On November 19th we celebrated our 65th wedding anniversary. We have 4 children, 6 grandchildren and are hoping for a great grandchild in the near future. I worked for the Burlington Northern railroad for 43 years, mostly on the Metra Suburban trains.
I served in the Air Force for a little over three years during WWII. I served with the same crew for the whole tour, in the 8th Air Force working on B-17’s. When we were discharged, in 1945, we were stationed in Sioux Falls and had not completed 30 missions. So we were sent to Demi, New Mexico and should have been put on a brand new B-29 for our journey home. But instead I had to hitch hike all the way home.
My highlight of 2013 was that I was chosen to go on the Honors Flight, which is a whirlwind one day tour of Washington D.C. My son William got to go with me. Our flight left O’Hare airport at 4:15am and we didn’t get back home until 11:00 pm. The highlights of our day included the World War II Memorial, where each of the stars represents 300 people killed and the total being 18 million. It was very moving. We saw the Vietnam Memorial and we toured the National Air and Space Museum where we saw the Enola Gay. I was also amazed by the bronze statue of, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, We took a group picture there also.
We were given many souvenirs of our day, Special dog tags, pins and books. I also got a packet of letters from my family. And an unexpected surprise was the letters from school children thanking me for my service.
Even coming back to O’Hare was a surprise because of all the people there to welcome us home. There were bag pipes and drums, the Legacy Girls, volunteers and service men from all branches. Truly a hero’s welcome. A perfect ending to a day that I will never forget!