Honoring Our Veterans

Eagle photo by Laura McKenzie

HONORING OUR

VETERANS

V E T E R A N S D AY S P E C I A L S E C T I O N

Honoring All Those Who Served At The Bank & Trust, we understand the commitment and dedication required to protect our freedom and defend our country. As a locally owned community bank, we are invested in our community, the people who live in Bryan/College Station and those fighting to keep us safe. To the men and women who are currently serving our country, and to those who have served in the past, we salute your courage. Your dedication protects our freedom and we thank you for your sacrifice.

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TO ALL OUR VETERANS, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!

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We Salute our Veterans THIS VETERANS DAY, IN HONOR OF THE BRAVE INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES OF THE U.S. ARMED FORCES, H-E-B WISHES TO EXPRESS SINCERE APPRECIATION FOR YOUR SERVICE AND SACRIFICE TO OUR COUNTRY. We are truly grateful.

VETERANS DAY 2019

2019, H-E-B 20-0536

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Arnold Foltermann - U.S. Army

BY MEGAN RODRIGUEZ megan.rodriguez@theeagle.com

He was a teenager in 1943 when he was drafted to serve in World War II, but 94-year-old Arnold Foltermann and his family are determined to hold onto his memories of service for

years to come.

Some of the most important documents — including a map that charts every place Foltermann went — are neatly compiled in a folder. Among the collection is a handwritten document of everything Foltermann can recall.

Over the span of a summer in 2005, he relayed everything to his wife, who transcribed the tales of snowstorms and close calls hiding from German soldiers that Foltermann encountered during his 38 months in the Army.

Overall, Foltermann said being drafted for military service was a stark contrast to the life he had in rural Texas as someone who was born in a cotton patch in Gay Hill, grew up in Lyons then attended high school in Somerville.

“It was all different than what I

was used to,” Foltermann said from his home in October. “I was just an old farm boy.”

Among his memories serving as a private first class who was responsible for working on the phone lines are the tales of wellknown conflicts including the Battle of the Bulge.

When Foltermann arrived in England, he was sent to Le Havre, France, and landed on Omaha Beach before being sent to the Moselle River. He was assigned to be a permanent replacement to the Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 318th Infantry Regiment, 80th Infantry Division of the 3rd Army.

“This is where I had my first experience as to what goes on in the infantry under actual combat conditions,” the handwritten account reads. “We stayed in

buildings that were badly damaged

by German Artillery fire along the Moselle River. Out in what had been the fields and farm land. There were hundreds of dead cows laying around, that had been killed by artillery fire.”

About halfway through December 1944, orders where changed while Foltermann was relieving another infantry division.

Instead of starting an offensive to breach the Siegfried Line, he was sent to his foxhole to help with Battle of the Bulge. The 150-mile journey was a challenging one.

“We started to travel in a light rain and mud which later turned to a blinding snow storm that left 18 inches of snow on the ground at our destination of Ettelbruck,” the handwritten account reads.

According to an Eagle profile published in 2016, Foltermann and

See FOLTERMANN, page 8

Free admission

The George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum will honor military members and their families again this Veterans Day by offering free admission to all active-duty, retirees, veterans, Reservists, National Guard, and Coast Guard members as well as up to five family members on Monday, November 11. The museum hours are from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

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VETERANS DAY

Free admission year round, to active-duty and reserve service members and up to five qualifying family members.

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John Velasquez - U.S. Army

BY KATY BARBER katy.barber@theeagle.com

In the decades since his return from Vietnam, John Velasquez has earned himself the nickname Mr. VFW for his years of service to Veterans of Foreign War Post 4692 in Bryan, as well as the veterans organization at the state and national level.

In addition to his role at the VFW, Velasquez is on the board of directors for the Brazos Valley Veterans Memorial, serves as the exalted ruler of Elks Lodge 859, and is a member of the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Veterans Association and America’s Last Patrol.

Velasquez, who moved to Bryan with his family when he was 12 and graduated from Stephen. F. Austin High School in 1964, was drafted into the U.S. Army in October 1966.

“I was married and had a child. I went to the draft board and said, ‘If y’all want me, I guess I’m here,’” he said. “So I went.”

During his induction ceremony in San Antonio, he was assigned a number. Even numbers joined the Army, and odd numbers became Marines, he said.

Velasquez shipped out to Fort Polk, Louisiana, for basic training and then traveled to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he volunteered for

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training at the U.S. Army Airborne School. He was sent to Fort Hood following his advanced infantry training and assigned to a unit of veterans returning from Vietnam.

“Staff sergeants, sergeants, corporals, and they had all just come back from Vietnam, and I’m like, what am I doing here?” he said.

“I’m wet behind the ears, but I stayed there [and trained] for a couple of months before they said that we were fixing to go to Vietnam.”

He was assigned to the infantry’s Americal Division assigned to the Vietnamese demilitarized zone.

Velasquez was 22 years old at the time.

“We got there in the late afternoon, and the next morning we went out on a mission. That afternoon, we saw combat.”

The firefight his second day in Vietnam left 29 members of the Viet Cong dead or wounded, he said. For the next year, he called the jungle home.

In August of 1968, Velasquez left Vietnam on a medical flight to Travis Air Force Base in California and was later medically discharged following multiple bouts of malaria.

He returned to his family in Bryan.

His boss at the Chevrolet dealership where he worked when he was drafted was happy to have him back.

“I came home on Friday and was at work on Monday morning,” he said.

Two years later, Velasquez opened A&M Twin City Paint and Body and it remains in operation today, run by his son, John Ed. Velasquez was first elected to a leadership position at VFW Post 4692 in the mid-1980s and served as the post’s commander more than 20 times, ending his most term last year.

He said the VFW post needs

to attract younger veterans, and the first step was handing off the leadership of the organization to a younger generation. Retired Marine Corps gunnery Sgt. Doris J. Carter has taken over as commander the post, and her husband, Joe, a retired Navy senior chief petty officer, serves as the senior vice commander.

Velasquez continues to be involved in the day-to-day operations of the post as a member of the Post Operations Committee and assists in raising money for its homeless veterans assistance program and high school scholarship awards.

Velasquez credited his military service with giving him the skills necessary in business and life.

“I believe that every young man and a lot of women should serve in the military because you gain a lot of experience,” he said. “You learn

how to become an adult, and it is probably the best lesson you can ever get in becoming mature. You learn a lot of discipline.”

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Cory Konderla - U.S. Army

BY KATY BARBER katy.barber@theeagle.com

Cory Konderla is going to be home for Thanksgiving for the first time in years.

The St. Joseph Catholic School graduate returned to his hometown of Bryan in late 2018 after serving in the U.S. Army for three years and has been enjoying civilian life with his wife, Keandra. “We went to California, Colorado for my [23rd] birthday in April, we went to Corpus for a few days,� Konderla said. “We went everywhere. This has been the best summer of my life.�

Konderla enlisted to join the Army in April 2015 on his 19th birthday, and by August he shipped out to Fort Benning in Georgia before joining his unit at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Following five or six months of training, the 101st Airborne Division deployed to Iraq to assist in training the Iraqi Army to take down ISIS at its stronghold in Mosul. “Our overall basic mission was advise and assist,� Konderla said. “We kind of showed them the ropes, stuck with them and stayed with them.�

His unit trained with the Iraqi Army for a few months at Camp Taji Joint Operations Base about 20 miles from Baghdad before moving forward with the plan to push ISIS out of the city of Mosul.

The 101st Airborne Division shipped out of Camp Taji in the middle of the

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night on a helicopter that dropped the troops in a field, which was followed by a hike of about five miles to where they would set up camp. “After rucking all that way, we finally got there,� he said. “It was real fast-paced. Like, you’re going to be on guard for 12 hours and after you’ll put out the [concertina] wire and set up the perimeter of the actual camp we made, a Tactical Assembly Area.�

The camp transformed from sandbag barriers to concrete ones over the course of weeks, and the initial platoon — about 30 people — grew to be more than 100 by the time Konderla’s unit left. The Iraqi Army and French Special Forces were among their ranks. “We’re outside of the city [of Mosul] on a big hill,� he said. “It seemed like nowhere but you could see the little villages around us and stuff. A lot of them were just rubble, just destroyed.

Then off in the distance was the city.�

From their camp, Konderla said they could see daily bombings of the city and felt the ground shake throughout the day and night as liberation efforts continued. After about four months, his unit was transferred out of their camp before Mosul was liberated, with the 82nd Airborne unit out of North Carolina taking their place. “One of my buddies in my platoon, his brother replaced us, so we got to hear a lot more than we would have [normally],� he said.

The plan after deployment was for Konderla to attend air assault school, a specialized 10-day course on training in insertion, evacuation and pathfinder missions utilizing multipurpose transportation and assault helicopters. He earned his air assault wings, but injured his shoulder in training in a manner that required surgery and rehabilitation that lasted until the end of his service in 2018. “I was recovering for six months hard, trying to jump back into things a little bit,� he said. “But I knew I didn’t want to stay in and I had just gotten married.�

Konderla and Keandra met when

they were teenagers after he moved into the neighborhood off of Leonard Road.

She lived down the street and became friends with his sister.

The pair became serious after they finished high school and communicated via text and letters throughout Konderla’s service. “Any chance I could, I was talking to her,� he said, mostly thanks to a

Wi-Fi hotspot device that he was able to purchase while overseas and use to communicate electronically.

Keaundra moved to Kentucky following the end of Konderla’s deployment until the end of his service, after which the pair moved back to Bryan. They have an apartment, and he started a new job at a local insurance company at the end of October.

Thank you for your service

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Robert Swain - U.S. Army

BY JENNY TWITCHELL jenny.twitchell@theeagle.com

College Station resident Robert Swain flew 1,100 hours of helicopter combat missions during the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1968, earning the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, a Purple Heart and 21 Air Medals.

He was also shot down four times.

The most life-threatening incident the Army veteran faced was in 1966 when he earned his Purple Heart.

While crouching down to get back into his helicopter, he was shot by a machine gun. There were 10 bullet holes in his right leg and one in his right arm.

“Every time I looked down, I found another hole,” Swain said.

He was taken to an Army base hospital and jokes about how annoyed he got by how many people kept coming up to him to ask his name, rank and unit while he was lying on a stretcher in the hospital.

“After about 10 people coming up and asking, I said to myself, ‘I’m going to bust the next guy that asks right in the nose,’” Swain said. “Then I hear, ‘Are you Capt. Swain?’ I turned to see a chaplain, and so I didn’t feel like busting him in the nose.”

Swain’s military career began after he graduated from Texas A&M in 1962.

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He graduated from Army Flight School in Fort Wolters near Mineral Wells and was sent to Fort Rucker in Alabama, where he received advanced pilot training. His first overseas assignment was in Korea, where he said he lucked out to get an assignment to be the aide and personal pilot of Maj. Gen. Oliento Barsati. The experience allowed him to fly around 70 hours a month compared to other recent graduates who were flying about four hours a month.

After that assignment, Swain became an aide to an Aggie — Brig.

Gen. Theodore Andrews — and then was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington, where he quickly and unexpectedly became a captain for an air cavalry troop.

“I was a first lieutenant at the time, but the captain was transferred out, and I was told, ‘You’re going to be the commanding officer, so next thing I know, I was in charge of an air cavalry troop with about 200 men and about 30 helicopters,” Swain said.

In 1966, Swain was deployed to Vietnam. On the flight over, a flight attendant caught his eye and would later became his wife.

Within just two weeks in Vietnam, he saw serious combat, and the next two years, Swain was involved in major battles. He conducted frequent flights with the intention of attracting fire so that they knew where enemy camps were located.

The hardest part of his service, however, is thinking about the servicemen he knew who lost their lives. One in particular, Patrick Haley, was from Chicago who had everything going for him, including being engaged to a Kennedy relative and was a future Harvard Law School student, Swain said. But less than a month before he was supposed to go home, that changed.

“I was standing close to my bunker and he flew by,” Swain said. “About three feet in the air, he waved to me, and that was the last time I saw him; he got killed. He had found some enemy troops. ... We heard it over the radio. He said, ‘I’m hit,’ and then he moaned all the way to the ground. He crashed and burned.”

That experience changed Swain’s mind about the war.

“Up until that moment, I felt pretty good about the war because I felt we were accomplishing something, but

after that I thought, ‘You know, is it really worth it?’ And the answer is, ‘No, it wasn’t worth it.”

Though the experiences he went through in service were heartbreaking, he didn’t let the war harden him, said Swain’s wife, Linda.

“The thing that I admire most about him is that he is more of a common man,” Linda said. “We go to a restaurant, he always wants to talk to the students — asks them, ‘What’s your major?’ and wants to be a sounding board to anyone in the Corps. He always will leave a big substantial tip to help a kid out. He’s always trying to have compassion for someone who struggles, who doesn’t have means.”

Following the war, Swain flew for United Airlines for 33 years and then

served as an international operations specialist with the Federal Aviation Administration for six years. He taught at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City for another 10 years after he retired from the FAA.

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Arnold Foltermann - U.S. Army FOLTERMANN, from page 4 the other men reached Ettelbruck the day before the Germans.

“When they arrived, it was almost a slaughter,” Foltermann said in the article. “I actually began to feel sorry for them but realized if the positions were reversed, it would have been us doing the dying.”

On Dec. 24, 1944, Foltermann was a part of the team that assisted the 4th Armored Tank Division in the relief of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne.

The next day was Christmas, and according to his wife’s written document, Foltermann had a turkey dinner.

“This was certainly better than k-rations,” he said in the document.

In the final days of the war, Foltermann was part of an effort to free men who were in a German prisoner of war camp for British airmen. Then, they went to Inn River in Austria — Adolph Hitler’s birthplace.

“This was an unusual river crossing, as the mayor of Braunau ordered residents to meet and greet us as we moved through the city,” Foltermann’s document reads.

While he said he doesn’t have specific memories about the day itself, Foltermann said he remembers the joy he felt when the war ended.

“We were just glad it was over with,” Foltermann said in October.

After completing his final discharge process at Camp

Fannin, Foltermann rode a train to Caldwell, where he spent his first night out of the military on a train depot bench.

He went to Lyons the next day, but eventually moved to Bryan where he started his family.

He used the skills he learned working on phone lines during the war to land a 41-year career that started at Southwestern States Telephone Co. Foltermann’s daughter, Kim Callaway, said it’s moving to see people show respect for her father’s time in the military, whether it’s his grandson bonding over their respective times in service or strangers.

“My dad will wear his hat and people will come up and say, ‘Thank you for your service,’” Callaway said. “It always gets ya.”

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James McCleskey - U.S. Air Force

BY REBECCA FIEDLER rebecca.fiedler@theeagle.com

Early in his career as a pilot for the U.S. Air Force, James “Lee” Leroy McCleskey was tasked with attacking enemy vehicles on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam.

One night, in February 1967, McCleskey and his navigator, Capt. Mike Scruggs, were paired with another A-26 twin-engine plane, a smaller and more agile cousin to the B-26 bomber, on just such a mission.

The two planes made several passes before the fuel cell on Lee’s plane was hit by enemy fire from the ground, McCleskey said recently. The planes crossed into Thailand, but McCleskey’s plane was on fire, and he and Scruggs were forced to bail out.

“At that time, I reached up and jettisoned the canopies,” McCleskey said. “I told Mike to get out. That’s when he was blown over the back of his seat. ... He got tangled up back there.

He was having trouble getting over the side of the plane, and the wind was blowing him around.

I was trying to fly the plane, and I pulled him up out of there because I wasn’t leaving without him. It was pitch black, and the fire was getting big. I knew time was short. I turned and dove out of my side after he’s gone out the right side.”

The men landed a mile apart from one another, their parachutes having successfully deployed. Scruggs broke his ankle, and McCleskey had

significant injuries to his legs.

The men in the second plane didn’t make it.

“They were too close, so when Lee’s plane blew up [in the air], it killed the men behind them,” said McCleskey’s wife, Joanie. “And it was so sad, because they were trying to help [McCleskey and Scruggs] get home.”

McCleskey said talking about the past can be painful, and Joanie said he still struggles with the thoughts of the people who died in

See MCCLESKEY page 16

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VETERANS DAY

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Spc. Naomi HerNaNdez-pledger

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MILITARY ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ

BRANCHES Fast facts about the five branches of the U.S. military

AIR FORCE Established: Sept. 18, 1947 Role: Air, space and cyberspace warfare Military personnel: 332,630 active duty; 106,737 Air Na tional Guard; 69,268 Air Force Reserve (as of Aug. 31) Civilian personnel: 327,039 Air Force; 106,284 Air National Guard; 69,033 Air Force Reserve (as of June 30) Colors: Ultramarine blue, golden yellow March: “The U.S. Air Force” Presidents who were in the Air Force: Ronald Reagan*, George W. Bush Some other famous people who were in the Air Force: Buzz Aldrin (astronaut), Gene Autry (actor, singer), Charles Bronson (actor), Red Buttons (actor), Frank Capra (director), Johnny Cash (singer), Theodor Seuss Geisel (author, Dr. Seuss), Morgan Freeman (actor), Aldrin Clark Gable (actor), Hank Greenberg (baseball), Gus Grissom (astronaut), Charlton Heston (actor), Tom Landry (football), Walter Matthau (actor), Chuck Norris (actor), Willie Nelson (singer), Ron Paul (politician), William Rehnquist (Supreme Court Justice), Bob Ross (painter, TV personality), Sinbad (comedian), Hunter S. Thompson (writer), Mel Tillis (singer)

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Morgan Freeman turned down a drama scholarship to enlist in the Air Force after high school.

PHIL MCCARTEN/Invision for the Television Academy/AP

LEADERSHIP

Commander-in-Chief: President Donald Trump Secretary of Defense: Mark Esper Secretary of the Air Force: Matthew Donovan (acting) Gen. David L. Goldfein *Reagan served in the Army Reserve and in the United States Army Air Forces, the successor to the Army Air Corps and predecessor of the Air Force.

ARMY Established: June 14, 1775 Role: Land warfare Military personnel: 481,744 active duty; 333,792 Army National Guard; 190,902 Army Reserve (as of Aug. 31) Civilian personnel: 468,783 Army; 331,094 Army National Guard; 190,864 Army Reserve (as of June 30) Colors: Black, gold and white March: “The Army Goes Rolling Along” Presidents who were in the Army (15): George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan* Some other famous people who were in the Army: Desi Arnaz (actor), Tony Bennett (singer), F. Scott Fitzgerald (author), Clark Gable (actor), Alexander Hamilton (Founding Father), Hugh Hefner (publisher), Jimi Hendrix (musician), Ice T (rapper, actor), Don Knotts (actor), Kris Kristofferson (singer, actor), Willie Mays (football), Mr. T (actor), Leonard Nimoy (actor), Elvis Presley (singer), Jackie Robinson (baseball), Gene Roddenberry (TV writer, producer), Charles Schulz (writer, illustrator), Tom Selleck (actor), Jimmy Stewart (actor), Pat Tillman (football)

LEADERSHIP

Commander-in-Chief: President Donald Trump Secretary of Defense: Mark Esper Secretary of the Army: Ryan McCarthy Gen. James McConville

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Above, Elvis Presley was drafted into the Army in 1958, two years after the release of his first studio album. AP FILE At left, rapper/actor Ice T became interested in hip-hop music while serving in the Army.

AP FILE

MARINE CORPS Established: Nov. 10, 1775 Role: Amphibious and expeditionary warfare Military personnel: 183,316 active duty; 38,994 reserve (as of Aug. 31) Civilian personnel: 186,814 Marine Corps; 38,220 Marine Corps Reserve (as of June 30) Colors: Scarlet, Gold Marches: “Semper Fidelis,” “The Marine’s Hymn” Presidents who were in the Marine Corps: None

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TV cohorts Ed McMahon (left) and Johnny Carson both served the United States in the military. McDOUGLAS C. PIZAC/AP file

NAVY

Some famous people who were in the Marine Corps: Dusty Baker (baseball), Rod Carew (baseball), Drew Carey (comedian), James Carville (political strategist), Roberto Clemente (baseball), Art Donovan (football), Adam Driver (actor), R. Lee Ermey (actor, drill instructor), John Glenn (astronaut, Senator), Gene Hackman (actor), Harvey Keitel (actor), Ed McMahon (TV personality), George C. Scott (actor), Driver Tom Seaver (baseball), Shaggy (singer/ musician), John Philip Sousa (composer, conductor), Ted Williams (baseball)

Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams served in the Navy and Marine Corps.

PRESTON STROUP/ AP file

Established: Oct. 13, 1775 Role: Naval warfare, power projection, nuclear deterrence and deployment by sea Military personnel: 337,099 active duty; 59,499 selected reserve (as of Aug. 31) Civilian personnel: 330,949 Navy; 59,221 Navy Reserve (as of June) Colors: Blue and gold March: “Anchors Aweigh” Presidents who were in the Navy (6): John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush Some other famous people who were in the Navy: Sen. John McCain (politician, POW), Neil Armstrong (astronaut), Alan Shepard (astronaut), Harvey Milk (activist), Yogi Berra (baseball), Roger Staubach (football), Johnny Carson (comedian, TV personality), Harry Belafonte (singer, actor), L. Ron Hubbard (writer), Paul Newman (actor), Regis Philbin (TV personality), MC Hammer (rapper), Jesse Ventura (wrestler, politician), Montel Williams (TV personality)

LEADERSHIP

Commander-in-Chief: President Donald Trump Secretary of Defense: Mark Esper Secretary of the Navy: Richard V. Spencer Chief of Naval Operations: Adm. Michael M. Gilday

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Golf legend Arnold Palmer served in the Coast Guard from 1951-54. MATT SLOCUM/AP file Some famous people who were in the Coast Guard: Humphrey Lloyd Bridges (actors); Sid Caesar (comedian); Walter Cronkite (newscaster); Jack Dempsey (boxer); Neal Gay (rodeo); Sid Gordon (baseball); Otto Graham (football); Alex Haley (writer); Arnold Palmer (golf); Al Roker (TV personality); Cesar Romero (actor); Ted Turner (broadcaster); Tom Waits (singer)

LEADERSHIP

LEADERSHIP

Commander-in-Chief: President Donald Trump Secretary of Defense: Mark Esper Secretary of the Navy: Richard Spencer Commandant: Gen. David Berger

Established: Jan. 28, 1915 Role: Defense operations, maritime law enforcement, search and rescue Military personnel: 42,015 active duty; 6,238 reserve (as of Aug. 31) Civilian personnel: 41,250 Coast Guard; 6,102 Coast Guard Reserve Colors: CG Red, CG Blue, White March: “Semper Paratus” Presidents who were in the Coast Guard: None

Astronaut Neil Armstrong joined the Navy in 1949.

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AP FILE

Commander-in-Chief: President Donald Trump Secretary of Homeland Security: Kevin McAleenan (acting) Commandant: Adm. Karl L. Schultz

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Air Force medal

Army medal

Distinguished Service Cross H Distinguished Service Crosses are the second highest military decoration awarded for extraordinary heroism.

Medal of Honor H The Medal of Honor is the highest military honor awarded by the U.S. government.

H It is presented by the president and given only to members of U.S. Armed Forces who “distinguish themselves through conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty,” according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Navy medal

H The medal, which dates to 1861, takes three forms — one for the Army, one for Air Force and one for the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

H The first Medal of Honor action came from Bernard J.D. Irwin,, an assistant surgeon in the Army.

H The first to receive and wear the medal was Pvt. Jacob Parrott for his actions in “The Great Locomotive Chase” in April 1862. He received the medal the following year.

H The most recent medal awarded went to Army Master Sgt. Matthew O. Williams of Texas, who helped save four critically wounded comrades and prevented the lead element of a special operations force from being overrun in Afghanistan.

WAR

3,525

TOTAL MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENTS Includes 19 double recipients

H The Silver Star is the third-highest combat decoration that can be awarded to members of the U.S. Armed Forces and is awarded for gallantry in action. Despite its name, the medal mostly is gold.

H The medal first was awarded in 1932, replacing the Citation Star, given for gallantry from the Spanish-American War to World War I. H It’s estimated more than 100,000 people have been awarded a Silver Star.

Bronze Star PURPLE HEART HISTORY

A quick look at medals awarded for war service Presentation and text by The (Lynchburg) News & Advance

Purple Heart H The origins of the Purple Heart date to George Washington and the Revolutionary War. Washington, wanting a way to bolster morale, created the Badge of Military Merit. It was described as a heart in purple cloth given to soldiers in instances of unusual gallantry, extraordinary fidelity and essential service.

H It fell into disuse after the revolution, only to be revived on the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birth. On May 28, 1932, 137 World War I veterans were conferred Purple Heart medals in a ceremony in New York.

H Over the years, the criteria for receiving the medal has expanded to include people injured in acts of terror and those wounded or killed when acting as part of a peacekeeping force outside the U.S.; wounded or killed in friendly fire; prisoners of war wounded in capture or captivity; and those wounded or killed by certain kinds of domestic terrorism.

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Silver Star

H Some well-known recipients of this medal are Gens. George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur and former Sens. John Kerry and John McCain. A controversial recipient was Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals football player who became an Army Ranger. He died as a result of friendly fire in Afghanistan.

MEDALS

H An estimated 1.8 million Purple Hearts have been awarded since 1932.

H “Actions that merit the Distinguished Service Cross must be of such high degree that they are above those required of all other U.S. combat decorations but do not merit the Medal of Honor,” according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

H In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order allowing Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard personnel to receive the Purple Heart. The order also allowed the medal to be awarded posthumously to those killed on or after Dec. 7, 1941, and about a decade later, it was extended to April 5, 1917.

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H The Bronze Star has been awarded since 1941 to any person in the Armed Forces who distinguishes themselved by heroic or meritorious achievement or service, not involving participation in aerial flight. There are three types of this medal — achievement, merit or valor.

H Civilians also can earn a Bronze Star. Joe Galloway, a photojournalist for United Press International News, was awarded a Bronze Star for valor for rescuing a badly injured soldier during the Battle of Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam in 1965.

H There were 395,380 Bronze Stars awarded to World War II veterans; 30,359 for Korea; 170,626 for valor and 549,343 for achievement/ service for Vietnam (the first time valor medals were tracked separately); and 2,459 for valor and 99,886 for achievement/service for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

SOURCES: WOMEN’S MEMORIAL FOUNDATION; NATIONAL PURPLE HEART HALL OF HONOR; THE MILITARY ORDER OF THE PURPLE HEART; THE INSTITUTE OF HERALDRY; THE CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR SOCIETY; RALLY POINT; STARS AND STRIPES; AND THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

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Roger Sheridan - U.S. Marine Corps

BY KENNY WILEY kenny.wiley@theeagle.com

Effective leadership, according to area Marine veteran Roger Sheridan, means being a good follower and doing the little things right.

“When you make rank, you have more responsibility for the rank that you hold, but that doesn’t exempt you from helping clean up or taking care of your own trash,” Sheridan said in a recent interview.

Sheridan, 75, who today lives in Bryan, served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the Vietnam War before working in the 1970s at Texas A&M as an assistant instructor with the Corps of Cadets. He served in the Marines for two decades before embarking on a post-military life in the Brazos Valley that has included coaching Little League baseball and other leadership roles.

His community work has included laying wreaths on veterans’ graves at Christmastime, his work as a committee member with the Vietnam Veterans Association and his role helping with the creation, design and funding of the Brazos Valley Vietnam Memorial.

“You just jump in and help where you can,” Sheridan said of his extensive community involvement.

Frank Perry, a friend of Sheridan’s who also served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, described Sheridan’s service as “a living

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example of dedication to duty,” particularly with his willingness to train and teach others.

“In his 20 years of service to our country in the Marines, Roger demonstrated his commitment to duty — not only as a serving Marine, but in his tours as a drill instructor training new Marines to honor and protect our country with their service,” Perry said. “He showed them how to listen and learn from a seasoned senior enlisted person as they grew in the officer corps.”

The youngest of his parents’ 11 children, Sheridan said his family, growing up in Maine, “put the ‘P’ in poor.” He cut pulpwood as a teenager with his dad, who also worked as a lobster fisherman.

“Whatever you could do to make a penny, we did it,” he said.

About the time Sheridan turned 17, he said, he came to the conclusion that he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in Maine. He idolized one of his older brothers and decided to follow in his footsteps and join the Marine Corps.

Sheridan said he went to boot camp in May of 1962 and, just months later, deployed from Camp Lejeune on the North Carolina coast to Cuba in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. He said he vividly recalls the sight of U.S. tanks roaring over a hill at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

In 1964, he was transferred back to his home state of Maine, where he spent two years and met his wife, Jeanne. Sheridan’s orders to Vietnam came in May 1966, he said, and he got to Vietnam in August of that year after a stop in Okinawa, Japan.

“I learned real quick that my job was to be as safe as we possibly could — and to bring those boys home,” Sheridan said of his role as a squad leader, and, later, as a platoon commander. “That’s what I needed to do.”

Sheridan said that he has a large number of local friends who also served in the Vietnam War, many

of whom, he said, talk about their experiences more frequently than he does.

“It was an experience that you won’t forget. I don’t like talking about it. A lot of people like talking about it; to me, I just try to put it behind me,” he said. “That’s the easiest way that I have found to deal with it.”

His time in Vietnam, Sheridan said, includes events that are hard to think about as well as moments of levity.

In the late spring of 1967, Sheridan stepped in a hole and twisted his knee, and a doctor told him to come back to the states due to that and another injury. Sheridan said that he left at a particularly challenging time for those he served alongside.

“It was a hard scene to leave, because I wanted to get home, but also I felt like I was abandoning them. There was nothing I could do about it,” he said.

Upon returning home, he was joined by Jeanne and other family members, including his toddler-aged son. As he got around on crutches, he was moved to Quantico, Virginia, and, as he healed, was asked to join drill instructor training.

“It was a booger of a school.

They worked us to death,” he said of drill instructor training in South Carolina. He worked as a drill instructor for three years, until 1972. His career continued, and in early 1976, he got a phone call that included a proposal.

“They asked me, ‘Do you want to go to Texas A&M?’ and I had no idea what Texas A&M was,” Sheridan recalled with a laugh. “We came here in March of 1976 on Highway 30 through Downtown Bryan.”

He worked as an assistant military orientation instructor with A&M’s Corps of Cadets in the late ‘70s. Sheridan praised the work ethic and camaraderie of the students he worked with.

“I loved it. It was wonderful.

The students were awesome and the Corps was awesome,” Sheridan said.

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He fondly recalled that before he left Texas A&M, a number of student cadets “kidnapped” him and carried him in a garbage bag up to the third floor of one of the dorms in the Quad before presenting him with an Aggie saber to wear with his dress uniforms.

Sheridan’s last deployment was to Caracas, Venezuela for embassy duty. In his two years there, his Marines guarded the U.S. ambassador and the embassy. Most of their activities dealt with asylum seekers, he said.

Sheridan and Jeanne moved back to the Brazos Valley in the 1980s.

“It’s a very patriotic community,” Sheridan said of the Bryan-College Station area. “That’s why I live here.

I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

He has also worked with the Boy Scouts and with the Marine Corps League, Sheridan said. Leading by example, Sheridan said, is something important to him.

“You can train someone to be a leader, but to be a good leader, you also have to be a good follower,” he said. “You have to be able to follow people and be yourself — and be clear about what you want. You also need to be willing to truly be with them.”

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James McCleskey - U.S. Air Force MCCLESKEY, from page 9 the vehicles targeted by his plane.

After recovering from his injuries, McCleskey chose to return to Vietnam, declining an option to stay in the United States.

“I felt like I had not finished my tour, and the other guys there were battling every night,” McCleskey said.

Following his tour in Vietnam, which included 151 combat missions, McCleskey continued his service with the Air Force, rising through the ranks and specializing in intelligence work.

For 18 months in Louisiana, he trained Vietnamese pilots

who had defected to the other side of the conflict. After moving to California, he helped with a project aimed at preventing vehicles from using the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

He went on to serve at the Pentagon and was assigned the task of inspecting embassies at 46 countries.

McCleskey retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1992, after 30 years of service. He had earned two Silver Stars, a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Flying Cross, two Bronze Stars, a Legion of Merit and many other awards and distinctions.

After leaving the military, McCleskey became the deputy commandant for discipline and

training for Texas A&M University’s Corps of Cadets, a position he held for seven years.

“It was different, but it was an awful lot of fun,” he said. “I made a lot of friends with the cadets.”

McCleskey then served as head of safety and training for the Physical Plant Complex at Texas A&M. He retired fully in 2005 and spends his time today volunteering with the Brazos Valley Food Bank, teaching Sunday school at Parkway Baptist Church of College Station and spending time with his family, including 16 grandchildren.

From opening your first savings account to planning for retirement, and everything in between, we’re with you every step of the way.

Thank you for your service.

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VETERANS DAY

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Walter Richards - U.S. Navy

BY CHELSEA KATZ chelsea.katz@theeagle.com

Before many people knew about radar, Walter Richards was manning the radar station aboard the USS Alshain during World War II. Ultimately, Richards, who will turn 100 on Jan. 14, spent 22 months and 15 days in the U.S. Navy, completing five invasions in the Pacific aboard the amphibious cargo ship.

“It wasn’t good, but I made five invasions, and didn’t get a scratch,” he said. “I got in the Navy just in time to make the invasion of Guam, and then we moved to Philippines, and it was Leyte and Luzon.”

His ship made two invasions in Luzon where, he said, the upper island was good but the lower island had the Bataan Peninsula and caves.

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and then about eight days later, we made the invasion of the upper island,” he said.

As a radarman third class, Richards and his other two team members had their battle stations.

That is where he was when the USS Alshain barely escaped a kamikaze attack.

“When we started to go to Okinawa ... just at daylight — right after daylight — we had a kamikaze attack,” he said. “They dive into the ship, and the ship next to us caught one, but they didn’t lose their life.”

Following the invasion of Okinawa, Richards’ ship went to New Caledonia to load up for the next invasion. As protocol, they never knew where their next location was until two days into the mission.

“But we got there and were supposed to start loading in the morning. They didn’t start loading in the morning,” he said. “We wondered why, and they told us to turn the radio on. We had a shortwave radio, and the news came through: The war was over; Japan had surrendered. Then instead of loading, we went back to Hawaii, and we had to wait there and were given discharge.”

After finishing their physicals in Houston, a group of three or four men caught a ride back to BryanCollege Station for a small fee, though Richards said, they “would have gladly paid twice.”

After first leaving Bryan on Feb. 7, 1944, as a volunteer, he returned home to his family on Dec. 22, 1945, just in time to celebrate Christmas with his wife and son. His daughter was born a few years later.

His son was 4-years-old when Richards arrived back home, and Richards’ wife, Margaret, had to introduce the boy to his dad.

Richards said, “He came over, and I put my arms around him, and I said, ‘Now, son, I’m your daddy.

I’ve been away fighting a war, and by the way we won, and now you can mind me, your momma and [your uncle].’”

He called that Christmas “very, very special.”

“I have four great loves in my life,” he said. “First is my Lord, Jesus Christ, and second, my family — my wife mainly, we were married 73 years — and my country. If I had it to do over, I would. … And the other one is my friends. I’ve got friends all over the world, and they pray for me, they support me, and I’ve got them here, too.”

Even though his wife died seven years ago, he said, he visits with the love of his life daily.

“I talk to her. She doesn’t hear me, I know, but it does me good,” he said. “I talk to her every day, tell her about the day.”

Richards was in Galveston during the attacks on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Less than three years later in early 1944, at the age of 24, he volunteered for the Navy. He said he figures they were probably getting ready to draft him anyway, but he had preference as a volunteer.

He knew nothing about radar, he said, but assured his officers he was willing to learn. Richards said he chose to work with radars thinking it would lead him back to College Station to study at Texas A&M’s training school. Instead, he was sent to Hawaii.

He and two men from the West Coast — California and Washington — were grouped together and became good friends.

“We were together the whole time,” he said. “We really liked each other. They called us the three musketeers.”

Some of the best memories of his time in the Navy, he said, are those friendships, noting how much they all had to trust one

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another.

Though the war was not a pleasant time in his life, Richards said, many good things happened as a result of it, including the chance to get his education.

While a student in the A&M Consolidated school district, Richards had dropped out of sixth grade after his mom’s death. After the war, though, he got his GED and went on to earn his associate’s degree in Tennessee, his bachelor’s and teaching certification from Howard Payne University and a master’s degree from Sam Houston State University.

His post-war careers included teaching fifth and sixth grades — in the Iola and Rockport school districts — and serving as a pastor in small churches.

“My wife also was a teacher, and we taught school in order to get enough money to work with small churches, and I pastored for about 65 years,” he said. “I preached my last sermon at 92 years old.”

Reflecting on his life, Richards said, it has been a “wonderful” one.

“I think that every major decision I ever made that turned out right was something [God] impressed me to do,” he said, encouraging people to serve God. “I still do. I still go to church. I don’t hear anything the preacher says, but I still go.”

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Holly Rees - U.S. Marine Corps

BY KENNY WILEY kenny.wiley@theeagle.com

Holly Rees graduated from high school in June of 1944, as Allied forces prepared to invade Normandy, France. Within 24 hours of the Operation Neptune D-Day invasion, Rees and other young men headed from their hometown of Prescott, Arizona, to Phoenix for pre-induction physicals as they started the process of joining the U.S. military in the midst of World War II. “We graduated one week, and by Tuesday of the following week, we were on the bus to sign up,” Rees said in an interview last month.

Rees, now 93, lives in Bryan, where he moved with his wife, Betty, in 1957.

On May 11, 1945, 19-year-old Rees arrived on Okinawa for Company I, 184th Infantry of the 7th Infantry Division. Ten days later, his unit started a monthlong journey that he described as “constant combat.” He and other American and Allied GIs fought Japanese soldiers at close range along Okinawa’s east coast.

Okinawa was the site of the last — and biggest — Pacific island battle of the war. It claimed more than 76,000 Japanese soldiers and nearly 15,000 Allied soldiers.

Rees recalled being “eyeball-toeyeball” with Japanese adversaries, recalling that he was close enough to “touch bayonets” with a Japanese soldier.

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On June 21, just hours before the island was declared safe, a Japanese sniper shot Rees in the foot. Rees said that the sniper could have killed him, but Japanese forces aimed to wound rather than to kill because treating the wounded cost Allied forces more resources.

Rees underwent multiple surgeries and spent months in the hospital, during which time he received the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

“It’s a major part of my life,” Rees said of his military service, which lasted 21 months and seven days during and after World War II. “Some people try to get away from it and ignore it, and others try to make more out of than it was. Being eyeball-to-eyeball with the enemy, it’s tough to get more involved than that, and I want to give it a reasonable place — not too little, not too much.”

Rees and his son, Lane, went back to Okinawa in recent years as part of a Rotary International trip to Tokyo, and they found the spot where he had been injured in the summer of 1945.

“It was overgrown with grass and it had changed, but I figured from the trees that I’d found the spot,” Rees said.

Rees published a book, Three Flags and Two Brothers, in fall 2016. In the book’s foreword, Rees wrote that he wrestled with the question of whether to write a book — he said he was concerned that “writing about oneself seems like the ultimate ego trip” — but decided ultimately “the pros outweigh the cons.”

“Many of my brothers in arms never made it back or have died since and can never record their experiences,” Rees wrote. “Therefore, I feel a solemn obligation to speak for them as well as tell my own story.”

Rees said some of his possessions from his time in the Army are on display at the Museum of the American GI in south College Station.

Rees said recently that he worked in the Social Security Administration at various sites around Texas. He became the supervisor of the Bryan office in 1957 and remained there until his retirement in 1984.

“I’ve been here ever since — that’s a long time,” Rees said last month. “I’ve always liked the melding here of the academic community, the military and the working people.”

Rees is a Hall of Fame member

of the Bryan Rotary Club; he said he joined just after moving to town. He also worked with the Boy Scouts, has taught Sunday school at church and has been involved in numerous other community endeavors.

For last month’s interview with The Eagle, Rees was joined at his home by Exa York, a longtime family friend who said she grew up in the Rees family’s neighborhood and “to this day” attends a weekly prayer meeting at Rees’ home.

“I keep thinking about how you’re going out there as a high school graduate and coming back as a mature adult,” York said to Rees. Rees said that after his 21 months in the Army, he moved to Tucson and enrolled at the University of Arizona.

“Being wounded in the service, the military took good care of me, helping me go to college with the GI Bill,” Rees said.

He met his wife, Betty, while at Arizona. They married in 1950.

York said that on multiple occasions when she has gone out to eat with Rees and others, anonymous individuals have paid for Rees’ meals.

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“People are constantly, wherever we are in town, coming up to him and thanking him for his service,” York said. “I’m proud to be a member of ‘Team Holly.’ You cannot believe how many people, many of them prominent citizens, are really supporters of Holly’s. ... It is just an endless group of people who all keep in touch with him.

“Holly has his own fan club,” she said.

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Bill Youngkin - U.S. Army

BY MEGAN RODRIGUEZ megan.rodriguez@theeagle.com

Bill Youngkin is known throughout the BryanCollege Station community for supporting and sharing the stories of fellow veterans, but Youngkin also has his own story to tell.

Youngkin, 72, is a partner at the Youngkin & Doss law firm in Bryan, but from 1971 to 1972 he was in the U.S. Army, working his way up to first lieutenant and serving in Vietnam. Youngkin said he always knew service was important and he was proud he did it, but it wasn’t until he visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., that he truly felt connected to the veteran community.

Military service was “part of the norm of growing up” in Youngkin’s family — a natural step between graduation and marriage. It’s been a family tradition since the American Revolution, he said.

Youngkin’s path was slightly different, though, since he was the first in his family to go to college before he served. Youngkin studied agricultural education and was head yell leader at Texas A&M University. He said his time in the Corps of Cadets at A&M prepared him well for the military.

When he graduated in 1969, he received a commission. Since there was a slight delay before he was sent to officer basic training, Youngkin started his military service at the same time as a classmate named Bill May, who was a year behind Youngkin.

Together, they went to jump school, got stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and were in adjoining units as part of the 18th Airborne Corps. They

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received their orders to go to Vietnam on the same day and flew over on the same plane.

While in Vietnam, Youngkin said, he continued to receive orders that placed him closer and closer to the demilitarized zone, until he was about eight miles from it in Quang Tri. While it made him nervous, Youngkin said he learned to move forward and continue working.

“After a while, you realize that if stuff happens, stuff happens,” Youngkin said. “There’s not much you can do about it except do your job. You quit worrying about it ... until you get close to going home. Then you’re afraid that something might happen and you won’t get home.”

May was not the only Aggie Youngkin connected with when he was overseas.

On Christmas Eve 1971, Youngkin and a few A&M alumni ran into each other at a Bob Hope show. It was a night that was special because now he had his own story about seeing Hope perform to match his father’s tales from World War II. But it was the time with his friends, on what Youngkin thought would be a lonely first Christmas away from home, that he said made it especially memorable.

Youngkin said he was surprised, but grateful, that Hope was willing to perform at the active combat area of Camp Eagle Vietnam.

“What I thought would be one of my worst Christmas memories turned out to be one of my best,” Youngkin said. “[Hope] gave up his Christmases with his family just to make it better for those who couldn’t share it with their family, and we all appreciated that.”

While he found companionship in Aggies overseas, Youngkin said the return home was far from welcoming.

“On the plane coming back, you have to wear your uniform until your point of destination,” Youngkin said. “I didn’t have anyone come up to

shake my hand or say welcome home. It was like you had a disease, and you felt like less of an American than them.”

It was this treatment that led Youngkin to living a life free of service to the veteran community until an experience in 1992. He was invited to a meeting with the A&M Association of Former Students in Washington, D.C., where he visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall for the first time. Youngkin said it reminded him of the more than a dozen friends he lost, and the many others who died that he never met.

“If you’re a veteran — particularly Vietnam — and you go that wall, you cannot help but reach up and touch those names of those you served with who didn’t come home,” Youngkin said.

“I made a promise to myself that I was going to be a better veteran and I was going to remember those guys.”

Upon his return home from the trip, Youngkin joined the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He is also on the Brazos Valley Veterans Memorial board, and since the early

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2000s he has written a guest column in The Eagle that highlights the stories of military service from local veterans.

“About 10 or 12 years ago, I found my dog tags and I wear them every day, just to remind myself that I got to come home and they didn’t,” Youngkin said.

November 10, 2019 | 21

Richard Butch Harris - U.S. Army

BY CHELSEA KATZ chelsea.katz@theeagle.com

Family history dictated Richard “Butch” Harris should have been a carpenter and painter like his father and grandfather.

Instead, he became part of a team that revolutionized battlefield medicine.

Toward the end of his 28-year career that included about three years in West Berlin before the Berlin Wall fell, Harris was the lead veterinarian on the team that created a product called dry fibrin sealant dressing used to treat battlefield injuries.

“That bandage has saved hundreds of lives,” he said.

Along with a team of physicians and researchers, Harris conducted humane animal trials over the course of six years to determine the product’s usefulness, moving from mice to guinea pigs to goats and finally to pigs.

“We finally got enough data from our pigs that we were able to submit to the FDA for approval,” he said, noting the approval was for battlefield use and combat hospital use only. “That’s the first time anything has ever been approved by the FDA that went from animal use straight to human use without a human trial since the Salk (polio) vaccine.”

Now, he said, soldiers carry DFSD in their regular gear with medics carrying multiple with them in combat. The initial order from the Army was 80,000 bandages.

As they saw how well the DFSD worked on each animal, he said, the researchers all thought about the advances it would make in battlefield medicine.

“Since the Greeks and Romans, they’ve been treating battle injuries on the battlefield with hemorrhage the same way, wrapping it with gauze, tight bandage,” he said. “But now we’ve got something that we can actually stop that bleeding with with just a small bandage.”

In 2004, following his DFSD research, Harris became one of few veterinarians awarded the Order of Military Medical Merit.

Only those ranked in the top 5% of the Army Medical Corps are considered, and most times, the award goes to

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physicians, he said.

Thinking he had no chance, Harris said, when his name was called, “I nearly fell out of my chair.”

Harris’ military service began in 1977 when he enrolled in the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine at the age of 31 and commissioned as a second lieutenant on Sept. 4, 1977. Attending on a service scholarship, he owed one year of military service for each of the three years he was in school. That threeyear requirement turned into a 28-year career, as he did not retire until Oct. 5, 2005.

Harris, a native Ohioan, spent his career on bases throughout the United States and ended in his adopted home of Texas. One of Harris’ key assignments began in 1985 when he and his family were sent to West Berlin, Germany.

Through November 1988, Harris was the veterinarian for the Allied countries in West Berlin: the United States, Great Britain and France.

His main job was to lead food inspections and run the clinic, which was shared by the medical hospital.

In addition, Harris, as commander of the 168th Medical Detachment, led his unit in weapons training to join the Berlin Brigade.

One of the most impactful moments of Harris’ time in Berlin came in 1987 when the West Berlin defense level escalated to “DEFCON 1,” meaning imminent war due to the Soviets in East Berlin reacting to training exercises.

All civilians were being prepared to evacuate via plane, while all military units were instructed to prepare to engage.

Ultimately, the threat lasted only for half an hour, but during that time, Harris said, he had to tell his unit, “‘Just go out there and fight like hell,’ knowing that they’re all going to die.”

Following that experience, Harris said in a written account, he did not eat dinner or discuss the situation. He just hugged his wife, Molly, and son, Kyle, and went to bed.

“I had never been so proud of my group in my entire life,” he wrote. “No gripes, no complaints, no questions, no hesitation — just an exceptional willingness to the call to duty for our country — and everyone knew that they were going to die in the battle. Myself, standing in front of a group of soldiers and ordering them to a battle where they faced certain death, well, that’s supremely sobering.”

Harris was also in Berlin when President Ronald Reagan gave his speech at Berlin Wall’s Brandenburg Gate in June 1987 and met Reagan, Queen Elizabeth II and French

Chancellor Helmut Kohl on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the city of Berlin.

The year prior, in April 1986, Harris led the 168th Detachment following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which was about 800 miles from Berlin, and the La Belle Disco bombing.

It was his experience following the discotheque bombing that got him interested in counterterrorism efforts.

Also in a written account, he told how he was called shortly after midnight on April 5, 1986, to report immediately to the hospital.

Even though he was a veterinarian, he wrote, he was a physician and surgeon in the aftermath of the bombing.

“The hallways of the hospital were lined with people screaming from burns, profuse bleeding, broken limbs, and pleading for help,” he wrote. “The Commander of the hospital told me that since I had more surgical experience as a former civilian PA and military veterinarian surgeon than most of his physician staff, he was assigning me as a surgeon to one of the four operating rooms.”

By 7 a.m., he had completed necessary amputations on three

victims, but the next victim assigned to his operating room died in the hallway due to blood loss as a result of the shrapnel wounds.

“I have seen the horrors of terrorism up close and personal,” he said.

After returning from Berlin in 1988, the remainder of Harris’ military career was spent in residencies and managing lab animal colonies.

After retiring from the military as a lieutenant colonel, Harris spent time at Easterwood Airport as a member of the Transportation Security Administration.

Fourteen years out of the military, Harris, now 73, continues to practice veterinary medicine part-time locally, volunteers as a docent at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, travels and officiates championship U.S. golf tournaments.

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VETERANS DAY

November 10, 2019 | 23

HAVE YOU VISITED OUR COMMUNITY’S HIDDEN GEM? THE BRAZOS VALLEY VETERANS MEMORIAL IS LOCATED IN VETERANS PARK AND ATHLETIC COMPLEX AT 3101 HARVEY ROAD. THIS 12ACRE SITE INCLUDES LIFE-SIZED STATUES, A WALL OF HONOR, INTERPRETIVE PANELS AND MEMORIAL SITES THAT COMMEMORATE THE SACRIFICES OF VETERANS FROM EVEY MAJOR WAR IN OUR NATION’S PAST. ADMISSION IS FREE. DONATIONS ARE WELCOME. Do you have a beloved veteran you’d like to add to the Wall of Honor?

The veteran may be living, deceased or active, and does not have to be a Brazos Valley resident. The cost is $150 per name, and the application deadline is Aug. 15 each year to be recognized in that year’s Veterans Day Ceremony.

Learn more: BVVM.ORG info@bvvm.org /BVVETS