2022 Salute to Service

SALUTE TO SERVICE

Stories of Midlanders who answered the call

Read about Dottie Barickman of Council Blu s, a U.S. Air Force veteran and national director-at-large of the Vietnam Veterans of America, on pages 8 and 9.

JOE SHEARER , COUNCIL BLUFFS DAILY NONPAREIL

Army service during WWII left a great impact on 106-year-old veteran

JENNA EBBERS World-Herald Staff Writer

A small, wooden model B-24 bomber sits proudly next to a miniature Ameri can flag. A larger version of the stars and stripes rests gently on a display case full of medals and certificates in the corner of the living room.

At 106-years-old, Staff Sgt. Joe Bur gess’ life is much quieter today than the long days spent on airplanes flying over foreign countries and awaiting the next mission on an Army base.

Born July 14, 1916, Burgess enlisted in the Army in 1940, roughly a year before the United States joined World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He served for five years, flying over 30 suc cessful missions in B-24 bomber planes across Germany, Italy, Romania, Austria and other European countries. Now, he lives at Elk Ridge Village in Elkhorn.

Prior to enlisting in the Army, Burgess, originally from Utica, New York, spent two years working for the Civilian Con servation Corps, a work relief program started by President Franklin D. Roos evelt in 1933 during the Great Depression. Burgess built stone bridges, and cut down and planted millions of trees in northern New York.

“Before then, I was about a hundredpound weakling,” he said. “People ask me now, ‘How come you’re so healthy?’ I say that’s from two years of outdoor work.”

After leaving the program, Burgess, in need of a job, enlisted in the Army.

After training, Burgess traveled from California by train to Virginia, where he boarded an old, slow ship set to take him north to Greenland. It wasn’t the mode of transportation he had hoped for.

Joe burgess, 106, flew b-24 bombers when he was in the u.S. army during World War II. burgess, who

that even though his service only lasted five years, it made a great impact on his life.

a model of a b-24 bomber, like burgess flew when he was in the u.S. army during World War II, in his living room.

“They gave us a brand new airplane. We were gonna fly all over the world. We stocked it with candy bars and Coke and stuff like that. We had it about two weeks

burgess holds a list of flight missions he flew in during World War II.

ANNA REED PHOTOS , THE WORLD-HERALD

lives at elk ridge village in elkhorn, said

and they came and said I gotta take the plane back,” Burgess said.

The trek turned into a three-week jour ney. Luckily, he said, he never once got seasick.

It wasn’t until years after the end of the war that Burgess found out the ship tak ing him to Greenland was being tracked by a German submarine at the time.

“I guess we weren’t worth using a tor pedo on because we didn’t make any right turns to Europe,” he said. “We made it safely.”

In Greenland, Burgess worked as a gunman in a protective unit stationed to guard a contractor building a runway.

After a year there, Burgess was given the opportunity to return to the states and join what was then the Army Air Force as a radio operator in B-24 bomber planes. Following training in Delaware, North Carolina, Arizona and California, he deployed to Italy.

Burgess said he flew on 35 official mis sions in addition to multiple volunteer missions to jam German radar.

During one mission, Burgess and the rest of the flight crew had to take a spare B-24. Before takeoff, they checked every thing over and it all seemed fine, he said. However, as they neared their target, the plane started running low on fuel.

“So we took it to a vote. Do we go on this close or return and come back? We said let’s go,” Burgess recalled.

They continued on and dumped the bombs before turning back, but were forced to leave formation and travel

alone. They were shot at and considered making an unplanned landing in enemy territory. They decided against it.

“Well, none of us wanted to become prisoners, so onward,” he said.

Burgess and the crew landed with a

completely empty fuel tank to a crowd of cheers, he said. Everyone at the base had deemed them missing in action — they were three hours late.

Following the completion of his service and an honorable discharge in 1945, Bur gess set out to create a life outside of the military, starting with obtaining a college degree. As a teenager, Burgess left school to help his family financially by working as a dishwasher. After his service he was put in an accelerated program that would allow him to earn his high school diploma and his degree simultaneously.

Once he received his degree in electri cal engineering from Trine University in Angola, Indiana, he moved to Nebraska to marry Gertrude, an Omaha woman he fell in love with while in college. They had three children and were married 58 years.

Burgess spent 23 years working at Of futt Air Force Base as an electrical en gineer. After retirement, they moved to Florida and later Arizona. Gertrude died in 2008.

While his time in the military was only five years of his life, he said it had a great impact on him and gave him experiences that he remembers to this day.

“It’s been a long life,” Burgess said, “and an interesting one.”

a map with handwritten routes Joe burgess, 106, took when he was in the u.S. army during World War II. Photographed at his home in elk ridge village in elkhorn.

Retired Army major was motivated by sense of service

LUNA STEPHENS World-Herald Staff Writer

After a military career that took her both near and far, Yen Nguyen hopes to inspire the younger generation to consider a life of service.

The 41-year-old retired Army major spent nearly 22 years in the military. Since then, she’s been both an ROTC instructor at her alma mater, Creighton, and a JROTC instruc tor at Buena Vista High School in Omaha.

Nguyen’s family fled Vietnam in 1987. Af ter two years in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines, they reached the United States and have called Omaha home since.

Being 8 years old when the family immi grated, Nguyen said it was never lost on her what a privilege it was to grow up in the U.S.

She remembers her parents working hard to provide for their six children.

“When you come from a struggling coun try, to a country where you can be free to make anything of yourself … we didn’t feel like we were struggling in that sense,” she said.

After graduating from Central High School in 1999, Nguyen headed straight for basic training at Fort Jackson, South Caro lina. Nguyen said she remembers being the shortest one in the room and surrounded by mostly men, but was proud that she was able to keep up.

“Basic training was great,” she said. “The best decision I made was to join the Army.”

While her initial reasoning for enlisting was to be able to afford college, Nguyen said she stayed because she wanted to serve her

country. She and her family owe everything they have to this country, she said.

When she did move on to college, Nguyen joined the ROTC at Creighton and gradu ated in 2005. She described her experience as challenging and humbling, in a good way.

Nguyen then received her first commis sion in December 2005. She started at offi cer training, then moved on to training for the military police. She was first stationed with the 530th Military Police Battalion in Elkhorn.

However, not all of her assignments were domestic. Nguyen went to Iraq in 2008 and said one of her favorite assignments of her career was when she was a first lieutenant overseas.

Nguyen then ended her career as an instructor at Creighton until she retired from

the military in December 2020, after which she stayed on as a contract ROTC instructor until June. Ending her career at Creighton felt like a full circle moment, Nguyen said.

“It feels so good because I started my of ficer career at Creighton and I ended there,” she said. “It all comes around.”

Nguyen and her husband have two sons, Lewis and Richard. Lewis is a senior at Mil lard North High School and Richard is a freshman at Burke High School, where he is involved in the JROTC.

Nguyen comes from a military family. Her father fought in Vietnam, as did her uncles and her grandfather.

“To continue that lineage, it’s an honor,” she said. “And to be the first female in my family to be in the service, that’s even more of an honor.”

CHRIS MACHIAN , THE WORLD-HERALD buena vista High School roTC instructor retired army maj. yen nguyen has her class run up and down the steps.

Former USAF computer programmer dedicated to veterans causes in Nebraska and Iowa

RACHEL GEORGE Daily Nonpareil Staff Writer

Dottie Barickman is a leader in the local veterans community.

Instrumental in the effort to con struct the new Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Papillion, she has also served as the national director-at-large of the Viet nam Veterans of America since 2015.

A VVA member since 1987, she has participated in VVA’s National Finance, Constitution, Women Veterans and PTSD committees. At the state level, Barickman has been active with the VVA Nebraska State Council, and she has held the posi tions of president, vice president, secretary and delegate with Chapter 279 in Omaha. She has also held leadership roles with the Nebraska Veterans Home Board, Nebraska Veterans Council and Governor’s Round Table.

She is dedicated to honoring veterans — a cause near and dear to her.

Barickman helped stage the Omaha pro duction of “A Piece of My Heart,” a play depicting the struggles of nurses serving in Vietnam, and she participated in events with the Women in Military Service Association, the Vietnam War 50th Commemoration and the Offutt Air Force Base Open House Com mittee.

Barickman was born in Nashville, Ten nessee, but grew up in Mississippi. While attending Memphis State University dur ing the Vietnam War, she felt compelled to join the military.

“I believe everyone should contribute to our freedom,” she said.

Barickman served in the U.S. Air Force from 1970 to 1974. Stationed at Lackland, Barksdale and Offutt, she specialized in data automation and computer programming.

After serving at Offutt, Barickman lived in Omaha for a number of years. Upon her son’s graduation from Iowa State University, she and her husband moved to Council Bluffs, where they live today.

When her son went off to college, Barick man felt compelled to give back in some ca pacity. Her husband — also a veteran — sug gested she get involved with an organization that centered on military. After a few months of searching for the right fit, she got a phone call from Washington, D.C., referring her to the Vietnam Veterans of America’s local meeting.

“The group honestly welcomed me with open arms,” she said. “I was treated exactly

the way I would want others to be treated. It was a wonderful feeling; I felt blessed that I had found them.”

Thus began Barickman’s extensive service through the organization, culminating in her national involvements.

Still, Barickman isn’t afraid to put in the work. In fact, it’s what she enjoys most.

When a couple of the Omaha VVA chap ter members proposed a Nebraska Vietnam veterans memorial, she asked if they needed help.

She started investigating, first trying to help pull in an architect. Then she met with Papillion Mayor David Black, and later with city staff, before the city donated two acres of land for the project.

“My role is to push us ahead, put us in the right place,” Barickman said. “I want to be a worker. This gives me the opportunity to

JOE SHEARER , COUNCIL BLUFFS DAILY NONPAREIL

dottie barickman of Council bluffs, a u.S. air Force veteran and national director-at-large of the vietnam veterans of america, poses for a portrait on the bob Kerrey Pedestrian bridge.

PAUL COCILAS , PROCHASKA & ASSOCIATES

The nebraska vietnam veterans memorial Foundation has obtained a surplus vietnam-era uH-1 Huey helicopter, which will be displayed as part of an exhibit.

work on behalf of the veterans.”

She helped build a partnership with Bel levue University, who aided the memorial effort by starting a website and recruiting volunteers to begin telling veterans stories, with the goal to share as many stories of individual Nebraska Vietnam veterans and their families as possible.

“People inspire me,” she said. “Military inspires me; red, white and blue inspires me — to hear people talk about human touch, telling the story. Every single story is dif ferent; every way they look at it is different; every takeaway is different.”

This spring, ground was broken on the Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial — located on a hill just south of the SumTur Amphitheater off 108th Street near Papil lion-La Vista South High School. Ground work is expected to be laid before the end of the year, Barickman said.

A prime location, it’s within an hour drive for 65% of Nebraska’s residents, and it’s sit uated between the Omaha National Cem etery in Papillion and the Eastern Nebraska Veterans’ Home in Bellevue.

The $5.5 million project will feature 11 obelisks that will create a historical jour ney of the events of the Vietnam War. An honor wall will memorialize the 396 Ne braskans who lost their lives in the conflict

and flagpoles will display the United States flag, POW/MIA flag and the five branches of the U.S. military. There will be benches and greenspace for people to gather.

Aviation students at Iowa Western Com munity College restored a Vietnam-era UH-1 “Huey” helicopter, completing the work in September. The helicopter will be come part of a mixed-media sculptural de piction of the rescue of a wounded solider that will be the centerpiece of the Vietnam War memorial.

Between donations, grants and fundrais ing, Barickman believes more than 80% of the project has been funded.

“Momentum is definitely building up,” she said.

Originally, organizers hoped to open the memorial on National Vietnam War Veter ans Day, March 29, 2023, but Barickman said that schedule has been pushed back due to logistics, along with delivery and supply is sues compounded by the pandemic.

“We’re working so hard,” she said. “We want to make sure that everyone under stand that this memorial is for all those that served.

“We want a living, breathing memorial. It’s not just going to be granite and stone — it’s going to come alive.”

JOE SHEARER , COUNCIL BLUFFS DAILY NONPAREIL William newstrom, left, nathaniel rokes, center, and aidan brown, work on the helicopter. The chopper, with tail no. 68-15532, joined the 3rd brigade, 1st Cavalry division in Quan Loi, vietnam, according to an account from the nebraska vietnam veterans memorial Foundation.

Army veteran ‘thankful’ for experiences and friends military gave her

DAVID GOLBITZ Daily Nonpareil Staff Writer

Army veteran Sgt. Brittany Rock well has always been hypercom petitive with her older brother, Brandon. Whether it was chas ing after her brother and his friends on a Wisconsin playground in grade school or playing flag football because he played flag football, she always felt that she needed to prove herself.

“I remember one time guys were bullying me on the field, and I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to seem weaker than my brother,” Rockwell said.

She even went on a high adventure ca noe trip to the Boundary Waters of north ern Minnesota because Brandon had gone with his Boy Scout troop on a high adven ture backpacking trip in New Mexico the previous year.

Rockwell, 28, and her brother came of age in the post-9/11 world when Ameri can patriotism was seen in everything from newspapers to television and movies to music.

“I remember my brother had the (Toby Keith) album with the ‘boot in your ass’ song,” Rockwell said. “I don’t know, it’s a very core memory, and my brother and I used to listen to that album, like, all the time. So I kind of think, like, I knew he was gonna join, and I’m a very competitive little sister.”

So when Brandon enlisted in the Army after high school, Rockwell was compelled to follow.

“I didn’t really wanna join the Army, I didn’t think,” Rockwell said with a laugh. “I wanted to join the Navy, because I grew up in Wisconsin, grew up on Lake Michi gan, always saw the Coast Guard. So I was thinking, ‘Navy,’ and then Brandon joined the Army and shined. So I was like, ‘well, I can’t let him outshine me, so I’m gonna join the Army, also.’ So I joined the Army.”

In the Army, Brandon was a military po lice officer, a role in which he “did abso lutely great,” Rockwell said.

“Everywhere you went, anybody that knew my brother always talked highly of (him),” she said. “Being the competitive little sister, I cannot let him outshine me.”

While her brother went the law enforce ment route, Rockwell took a slightly differ ent path through the Army.

She enlisted when she was a high school

senior in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and par ticipated in the monthly Army Reserves training. Once she graduated in 2012, she shipped off to boot camp.

“This was pre-Governor Branstad mak ing it so veterans and service members get in-state tuition, like, by a year,” Rockwell said.

She moved to Davenport, Iowa, where she had family, worked part time, and took some community college classes at Scott Community College as she waited to estab lish residency.

She had initially wanted to attend the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

“From a young age, my grandpa said I was going to be a Hawkeye,” Rockwell said.

However, as fate would have it, while she was living in Davenport, she had started seeing a guy who was going to attend Iowa State, so she applied to go there, too.

The relationship didn’t last, but, “I loved Iowa State,” she said.

After Rockwell earned a bachelor’s de gree in political science from Iowa State in 2017, she enrolled in JAG School.

“I always thought that I wanted to be a lawyer growing up,” she said. “I took law classes in high school, pre-law kind of type classes in high school. I really enjoyed his tory, and so I wanted to be a lawyer, and that’s kind of the path that I wanted to take. And then I became a paralegal and realized that I do not want to be a lawyer.”

JOE SHEARER , COUNCIL BLUFFS DAILY NONPAREIL army veteran Sgt. brittany rockwell poses for a portrait next to an american Legion monument in malvern, Iowa. rockwell, a Wisconsin native now living in Council bluffs, works as a conservation assistant, handling state programs for her district — she works at the malvern conservation office in mills County — and she works as a staffer for the county conservation board.

COURTESY BRITTANY ROCKWELL rockwell with her “mentor, friend and best boss,” master Sgt. Krystal Jones.

Rockwell realized that, “in fact, it’s the paralegals that get to do all the fun stuff and all the information (gathering), and the lawyers just kind of make the arguments in court,” she said. “It’s really, ‘if you have a good paralegal, you have a good lawyer.’”

Armed with this new knowledge, Rock well deployed to the Middle East in 2019, and worked as a JAG paralegal in Kuwait, Iraq, and one day in Syria.

“I did a bunch of different things,” Rock well said of her time in the field. “We did legal reviews on payments that went to sup porting the Iraqi army. We did a couple of trainings with the Iraqi army and some of their paralegals to teach ‘em about the law of war. I supported that. We worked with the Red Cross on a couple of things, on a couple legal issues. It was kind of, less military jus tice stuff and a little bit of everything else, when I was there.”

Rockwell visited a few Army bases in Syria just before Christmas with “a three-

star (general),” which landed her in the pages of Stars and Stripes, the U.S. military newspaper.

“I got back (from Syria) and walked in the dining hall the next day, and everybody was calling me ‘superstar,’ and I was like, ‘what are you talking about?’ And they’re like, ‘did you not see the paper?’ And I was like, ‘no, I’m trying to get breakfast, not see the pa per.’ And they ran and grabbed a copy, and I was on the front page of Stars and Stripes.”

When Rockwell returned to the U.S. — a return that was complicated and delayed by COVID-19 — she realized she was ready to try something new.

“In 2019, I spent more time in a hotel room than I did in my own apartment,” she said. “And with kids, I did not want to do that.”

Rockwell had met her future husband Kyle at Iowa State in 2017. They married in June 2019, and shortly after her deploy ment ended and she returned home, they were expecting.

Having fulfilled her commitment to the Army, Rockwell was discharged in Decem ber 2020, and she gave birth to twin daugh ters in January 2021.

“I really felt like I signed the dotted line to do some really cool things, and I got to do some really cool things,” Rockwell said. “So I decided that I was, like, ‘all right, I got to do that, now I’m gonna be a mom. I wanna focus on being a mom,’ so I got out.”

When she started to look for work after the twins were born, Rockwell decided she was tired of the law.

“I just wanted a break, I think,” she said. “I was kind of burnt out after my deploy ment with legal work.”

Rockwell briefly worked in probation across the river in Nebraska, but she quickly recognized she wasn’t cut out for that kind of work.

“I thought that that’s the path that I wanted to go, but I get too emo,” she said.

“I don’t know. The mom side comes out of me ... I brought work home, I brought emo tion home, and you can’t do that.”

Briefly, in college, Rockwell had thought about majoring in animal science, but, “I don’t have a science brain,” she said.

But when she saw a job opening at Pot tawattamie Conservation, “I was like, what the heck? What does it hurt to apply?”

Being from Wisconsin, Rockwell was fa miliar with the agriculture industry, particularly dairy farming, and conservation work seemed like a good fit.

“I consider myself an Iowan more than a Wisconsinite, but sometimes I like to claim Wisconsin, so I claim the dairy side of Wis consin,” she said. “I just always had a pas sion for conservation and agriculture, and I saw an opportunity, an open position, to work in it.”

Rockwell works as a conservation as sistant, handling state programs for her district — she works at the Malvern con servation office in Mills County — and she works as a staffer for the county conserva tion board.

“I really enjoy it,” she said. “I enjoy every single day coming to work. I look forward to coming to work.”

Rockwell also maintains close ties to the local veterans community. She serves on the Pottawattamie County Veterans Af fairs Commission, and is thankful for the friendships that she has been able to form with other area veterans.

“Everybody compares the military to a frat and, like, your brotherhood or sister hood, and I really think that there’s some truth behind that,” she said. “You get bonds with people that you would never normally know. You’re thrown into situations and you’re instant best friends with people be cause it’s like you empathize with them on some sort of level. I think being a veteran allows that. I’ve met a lot of great people and a lot of great friends in Pottawattamie and Mills (counties) by being a veteran and being involved in the community, and I probably would’ve never met them otherwise.”

COURTESY BRITTANY ROCKWELL brittany rockwell with her brother, Staff Sgt. brandon Gaura, at the JaG school.

COURTESY BRITTANY ROCKWELL Sgt. rockwell and some reindeer, Christmas 2019 in baghdad.

Local man escaped death during service as a merchant marine during WWII

JENNA EBBERS World-Herald Staff Writer

The dark skies were filled with pink lights as flares went up in all directions, attempting to alert someone to the sink ing tanker ship below.

Just before midnight, the ship was struck by a German torpedo, knocking Jim Greer, who was on watch duty at the time, off his feet. As the wa ter crept closer, he frantically searched for a lifeboat.

Finally, he found one.

Greer descended a rope ladder to the boat filled with his shipmates, but they left before he could make it down, leav ing him dangling above wearing nothing but slippers, shorts and a T-shirt.

To escape the sinking ship, he dove into the warm Caribbean water and swam toward floating debris — empty oil drums and wood — that acted as an emergency raft.

Soon, those in the lifeboat that left without him returned to rescue him from his lonely raft.

He narrowly escaped death, and it wasn’t the last time he would during his four years of service.

Greer, 98, celebrated his 18th birth day just three days after the United States declared war on Japan and entered World War II on Dec. 8, 1941. Knowing his draft number was soon to be pulled, he enlisted in the Merchant Marine in July 1942.

Throughout his service, Greer took multiple risky trips overseas, looking death in the eyes once again as he suf fered from an extreme infection called “trench mouth” while on a mission. The pain was so severe, he said, he contem plated jumping overboard.

“I never had any fear,” Greer said. “Not when I was hanging on a ladder. I didn’t have a bit of fear when I was on the deck thinking about committing suicide. I didn’t feel fear. I was never afraid.”

Luck and God, he said, were on his side once more.

While battling his infection, a doctor told him to have his tonsils removed. So, he stayed behind on the next mission — and it saved his life.

The freighter ship Greer was meant to board was hit and blown up by a German torpedo off the coast of Morocco

in northern Africa, killing every person on board.

Following the conclusion of his ser vice, Greer worked odd jobs in Baltimore, where he was originally from, and had three sons with his wife, Ruth, who he was married to for 72 years before she died in August 2016. Later in his life, he accepted a job with Travelers Insurance Company as a marine engineer boiler inspector, which brought him to Omaha.

Now, Greer lives in Ridgewood Senior Living in Bennington, where he wrote “God Loves Me,” an in-depth book about his life before, during and after his ser vice.

“I’ve had a really good life,” Greer said. “A really happy life.”

Jim Greer, 98, served as a merchant marine for four years during World War II. above, he is posing with a medal he earned during his service at his home at ridgewood Senior Living in bennington. a closeup of the medal is shown at left.

JENNA EBBERS PHOTOS , THE WORLD-HERALD

Stint in Marines gives veteran service officer a passion for helping others

TIM JOHNSON Daily Nonpareil Staff Writer

Paul Rosenberg of Council Bluffs enjoys talking to other veterans.

Rosenberg is a veteran service offi cer and caseworker at Pottawattamie County Veterans Affairs, where he has worked for three years.

“I absolutely love my job. It’s my passion” to help veterans, he said.

Rosenberg helps them determine what ben efits they are eligible for and what services they need, whether it’s food from the VA pan try, medical care at the VA Medical Center or a home health aide.

“A lot of them don’t think they qualify, but just because you didn’t get hurt, you still have benefits that you qualify for,” he said. “I feel like we really make an impact on some people’s lives.”

And Rosenberg enjoys swapping stories with veterans, whether they served during the War on Terror or World War II, he said.

“It’s pretty cool, because it feels like, even though we’re generations apart, we still have some things in common,” he said.

Rosenberg was born and raised in Council Bluffs and graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in 2007. After graduating, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2007 to 2012.

JOE SHEARER PHOTOS , COUNCIL BLUFFS DAILY NONPAREIL

united States marines Corps veteran Paul rosenberg poses for a portrait next to artist Kelly Wold’s “Wounded Warrior” sculpture inside the Pottawattamie County veterans affairs headquarters, where he serves as a veteran service officer and caseworker.

“My family has a rich history of military service,” he said.

One of Rosenberg’s grandfathers served in the Navy, and the other one served in the Marine Corps, he said. He had an older stepbrother who served in the Army from 2002 to 2006 and was deployed to Iraq twice. He also has a brother and three stepsisters, but none of them have served in the military.

“I have the utmost respect for those guys who hit the Middle East,” he said. But Rosenberg was looking beyond that to civilian life after his enlistment.

“My dad being an Iowa State Patrolman for 36 years, I felt I wanted to go into law enforcement, and I thought the best place to go (to be a military police officer) was the Marine Corps,” he said.

After almost a year of training, Rosen berg was assigned to Marine Corps Air Sta tion Futenma in Ginowan, Okinawa, Japan. There, he patrolled the base, was often on duty checking IDs at the gate and some times helped civilian police officers.

“You do everything a police officer would do in the civilian world,” he said. That included responding to domestic dispute calls, breaking up fights and writ ing tickets — “make sure people are safe — just maintain stability like a normal police officer.”

Although part of Japan, Okinawa has its own culture, Rosenberg said.

“They’re very healthy people, every thing was clean and they were adamant about not tossing paper on the ground — and very courteous,” he said.

Working there was a mixed bag, Rosen berg said.

“It was fun, but it was very restrictive,” he said. “We had to be in by midnight, couldn’t have a car.”

To go someplace off base, they had to catch a bus or a taxi, Rosenberg said.

He never made it to the mainland during his two years in Japan, he said.

Rosenberg’s next stop was the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.

“It was kind of a mental relief knowing

you’re not on the other side of the world,” he said. “It was nice being back in the States.”

There, Rosenberg worked on the base and also with the civilian police, he said. There was no married housing on base, so domestic disputes weren’t an issue. They did have to watch for Marines trying to leave the base. He enjoyed getting to know Marines from around the country.

“You could be in a room with 15 guys, and every one of them was from a different state,” he said.

Marine Corps MPs were often paired with city police officers in patrol cars, Rosenberg said.

“My partner was a former Marine ser geant, so he kind of understood it from both worlds” after eight years as a civilian police officer, he said.

Rosenberg married his girlfriend, Jes sica, in 2010 in a low-key ceremony, but then he finished his enlistment and she finished college at Iowa State University.

“I got out in May 2012, and she actually graduated on the same day,” he said.

With those commitments completed, the couple had a big celebration, Rosen berg said.

“It was like a celebration of her being done and me being home,” he said.

After his discharge, Rosenberg worked in

security at Bergan Mercy Medical Center. It was a natural step toward becoming a law enforcement officer — but instead of going that direction, he decided to attend college and enrolled at Buena Vista University.

“I was thinking about becoming a his tory teacher,” he said.

Rosenberg earned a bachelor’s degree but decided not to go into teaching.

“I realized I wanted to do something closer to home and closer to veterans,” he said. “I really like being around the military aspect and talking to veterans.”

That led him to the job at Pottawattamie County Veterans Affairs. Rosenberg is now working on a master’s degree in public ad ministration from Ohio University through a two-year online program.

He and Jessica now have two children: son Grayson, 7; and daughter Charley, 4.

Rosenberg served as a football and girls basketball coach at Abraham Lincoln High School for three seasons, football coach at Bryan High School in Omaha for one year and track coach at Wilson Middle School for three seasons before taking the job at the VA. He recently finished coaching his son’s flag football team for the season.

He now has more time for his own ac tivities and his family.

“I love to go to the gym, and I love being a dad — love playing with the kids.”

The Pottawattamie County veterans affairs in Council bluffs.

CHRIS MACHIAN PHOTOS , THE WORLD-HERALD

STEVE LIEWER World-Herald Staff Writer

As Lt. Ellis McClintick, 22, eyed the wall of oxygen-fueled flame block ing the only exit from his burning B-17, his odds of living another five min utes seemed low — much less making it to 100.

Yet here he is, 78 years later — 50 years after retiring from the Air Force at Of futt Air Force Base as a colonel. At the age of 100, the Papillion resident has four children, eight grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and 1 great-greatgrandchild.

“We were all lucky to be able to finish World War II,” McClintick said last week, “and (I was) lucky to have a 100-year life.”

Ellis grew up on a farm in rural Walnut, Kansas, 130 miles southwest of Kansas City. He was the oldest of seven chil dren. His family eked out a living during the Great Depression, raising dairy cows, pigs, sheep and goats, along with row crops. They had a big garden, too.

“We didn’t realize we were poor,” he said. “Everybody else was in the same boat.”

McClintick grew to a height of 6-foot2, played softball and graduated from high school. But he never thought much about a life beyond the farm. In fall 1941, he was working as a farmhand in northern Iowa.

When the news broke on Sunday, Dec. 7, that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, he quit his job and hitchhiked home, plan

ellis mcClintick of Papillion received the French Legion of Honor medal in 2016 for his service in World War II.

ning to enlist like tens of thousands of other young men.

His folks had a different idea.

“My parents were adamant: Don’t vol unteer until you get called,” he said.

Instead, he took a job at a munitions factory in nearby Parsons, Kansas, until the draft call came in September 1942.

Before the war, McClintick had never given a thought to serving in the military, or to flying. But he decided to take a test to join the Army Air Forces.

“I’m not sure I’d ever seen an airplane before,” he said. “But I didn’t want to walk.”

McClintick qualified for navigator’s school — not bad, but he really wanted to be a pilot.

“They said, ‘Well, if you live through the war, you can volunteer as a pilot,’” he recalled.

He trained in Texas and joined up with a squadron in Washington state for com bat crew training. His crew picked up a brand-new B-17 in Georgia and crossed the Atlantic via Brazil and West Africa, arriving in Great Britain on his 22nd birthday, in 1944. He was assigned to the 390th Bombardment Group at Framling ham, England, about 60 miles northeast of London.

He flew his first mission March 18, 1944. It was stressful work in awful con ditions: subzero cold at altitude and unpressurized planes that made it necessary to wear oxygen masks at altitude.

Then there was the threat of German Messerschmitt fighters and exploding anti-aircraft flak.

“You learned a black puff of smoke was dangerous,” McClintick said. “They were trying to kill you.”

As the plane’s navigator, McClintick sat below and in front of the pilots. The B-17’s clear Plexiglass nose cone provided a panoramic view of the flak, the incom ing fighter and other B-17s, sometimes in peril, whose death spirals he dutifully

noted in his plane’s logbook so their fates could be reported up the command chain.

“The nose of the B-17 wasn’t exactly the safest place to be when they’re shoot ing at you,” he said. “You just tried not to think about (the risk). You had a job to do, and you did it.”

McClintick’s crew got through 25 missions in seven weeks essentially un scathed: missions to Augsburg and Liege, to Berlin and Bordeaux, deep into Nazicontrolled territory.

Compared to that, the 26th mission, on June 4, 1944, seemed like a piece of cake. Flying a plane called I’ll Be Around, Mc Clintick’s crew planned to bomb German coastal defenses in France — the purpose of which would become clear two days later on D-Day.

Piloted by Lt. Leroy Holmberg, I’ll Be Around ran into trouble at 21,000 feet, barely 40 miles from the home base. Sud

denly, an oxygen-fueled fire broke out just behind the cockpit, about 6 feet from where McClintick was sitting.

He saw the plane’s engineer, Tech. Sgt. Andrew Brown, who also manned the top turret, crawl forward through a tunnel to the cockpit area.

“The top turret gunner was right in the middle of the fire. When he crawled up, we knew we had to get out,” McClintick said.

One problem, though. The inferno blocked his path to the escape hatch.

“So I crawled through the wall of fire, fell out the escape hatch and pulled the ripcord,” McClintick said.

He remembers floating to earth in great pain, from burns to his exposed face and hands and from an injury to his pelvis. He was rescued by some British soldiers, who took him to a nearby Army hospital.

“They gave me a shot of whiskey and put me in a body cast,” he said.

The rest of his crew was there, too. Ex cept for Brown. He took the controls and apparently hoped to land the plane. He did jettison its bomb load, but the B-17 crashed into a farmer’s field.

“He went down with the plane,” Mc Clintick said. “He tried to be a hero. He wasn’t qualified to fly.”

Two months later, he had recovered from his wounds and returned to his squadron — the same base, even the very same cot as before.

Still, McClintick said, he wasn’t afraid to fly again, just determined to hit his quota of 35 flights as soon as possible.

“I made up my mind I was going to fin ish 10 more missions and go home for pi lot training,” he said.

That’s just what he did.

McClintick was home to spend Christ mas 1944 with his family in Kansas, then on to pilot training. By the time he fin ished, in October 1945, the war was over. But he continued to fly — B-17s, C-47s, B-57s and eventually KC-135 tankers,

which are still flown today.

He met his wife, Rhoda “Rae” Enslow, on a tour in Canada. They raised four sons. McClintick joined the Strategic Air Command in 1958. He racked up an other dozen combat missions during the Vietnam War and finished up his career in SAC headquarters at Offutt in 1972.

He spent 10 years selling real estate in the Omaha area before retiring for real in the early 1980s. He has continued to take an interest in military aviation museums in the U.S and England. One of them, the 390th Bomb Group Museum in Tucson, Arizona, has restored a B-17 and named it I’ll Get Around, after McClintick’s plane that crashed.

To this day, McClintick plays golf and bridge regularly. He’s scored three holesin-one and shot his age more times than he can count — though he confesses that he now plays an “old man’s course,” with no water hazards or sand traps and no lengthy par-5 holes.

Rae died in 1996. Ellis moved into the Hillcrest Country Estates retirement home in Papillion seven years ago.

In 2016, the French government awarded McClintick its Legion of Honor medal, and he was selected to be the grand marshal of Bellevue’s big Veterans Day parade.

His son, Jim, 73, who lives in Lincoln, said McClintick taught his kids the importance of family, generosity, a strong work ethic and good character.

“He was tough but fair with us,” Jim said. “While he has mellowed over the years, he has never lost his focus for us to carry the family legacy through his ex ample. We are all glad he is here for five generations to know him.”

Oh — and what is Ellis McClintick’s se cret to long life and good health?

“Well,” he said, “What other choice do you have?”

sliewer@owh.com; twitter.com/Steve Liewer

EUGENE CURTIN , BELLEVUE LEADER

retired air Force Col. ellis mcClintick with his Legion of Honor medal in 2016.

John Miles 402-598-0598 john.miles@bhhsamb.com

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words:

“To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations...”

Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soliders, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress amended by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting in its place the word “Veterans.” With the approval of President Dwight D. Eisenhower this legislation on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

The observance of Veterans Day not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: A celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs