Veterans Day 2022

Paying tribute to all American veterans, here and gone

On the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month in 1918, an armistice, or agreement to stop fighting, was reached between the Allied nations and Germany in World War I.

One year later, President Woodrow Wilson declared that Nov. 11, 1919, was a day to remember Americans for their military service in World War I. He called it Armistice Day. He suggested that Americans celebrate with parades and perhaps a “brief suspension of business” around 11 a.m. President Wilson also hoped it would be a time when Americans offered prayers of thanksgiving for those who had served and for peace for all times.

n President Wilson originally intended Armistice Day to be observed one time, but many states decided to observe it every year to honor World War I veterans.

n Congress followed the states’ lead and in 1938 declared that every Nov. 11 would be observed as Armistice Day.

n Congress changed the name to Veterans Day in 1954 to honor veterans of

all wars.

n For a brief time, 1971-74, Veterans Day was observed on the fourth Monday in October. Since 1975, Veterans Day is always observed on Nov. 11.

n If Nov. 11 falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the federal government observes the holiday on the previous Friday or following Monday, respectively.

n Nov. 11, 1921, when the first of the unknown soldiers was buried in Arlington National Cemetery; unidentified soldiers also were laid to rest at Westminster Abbey in London and at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

n Memorial Day, the fourth Monday in May, honors American service members who died in service to their country.

n Veterans Day pays tribute to all American veterans, living or dead, but especially gives thanks to living veterans who served their country honorably during war or peacetime.

– From the Missouri Press Foundation

Duty called and veterans answered

n

You paid your dues

By John KuBal The Brookings Register

BROOKINGS – Of all the assignments I’ve taken on here at The Brookings Register during my 20-plus years as a reporter – full-time and part-time – the Veterans Day special edition remains my favorite.

To the best of my abilities, I try to tell the stories of local men and women who have served honorably in the armed forces of the United States: Army; Marine Corps; Air Force; Navy; Coast Guard; and Space Force. (A small disclaimer here: I haven’t told a story of a “Coastie” veteran, because I haven’t been able to find one. They seem to be few and far between. I’ve noticed at gatherings featuring music and where veterans are honored with their service songs being played, it’s rare to see a Coast Guard veteran stand up. When I find one, I’m ready to tell their story. As to the Space Force, has it been around long enough to have members leaving and becoming veterans? )

My approach to the Veterans Day edition is a simple one: if you served honorably in any of our nation’s six services cited above, I want to tell your story. Whether you served in peacetime or wartime or both, here in the United States or abroad, you paid your dues. If you don’t want your veteran’s story told for any reason –or no reason – I respect that. But I suspect I’ve missed some good stories because I’ve run into vets who don’t want their stories told because they didn’t serve in war or in combat; again, I respect that. But perhaps the cover of the Veterans Day edition of Nov.r 11, 2015, says best what Veterans Day is all about : “Honoring all who served in times of war – in times of peace.”

Many veterans didn’t serve in wartime. Many who did had war thrust upon them: Our “Greatest

John Kubal

Ready to face the Warsaw Pact

n Remembering Operation BIG LIFT

By John KuBal The Brookings Register

BROOKINGS – John Hohenthaner was a student at South Dakota State University for one year: 1960 to 1961. He came back for ’61 to ’62. But his college days were about to come to an end for awhile.

Hohenthaner was born 1942 in Yankton. At the time his father, Ralph, was in the Navy. (From his description, it sounds like his dad served as a coxswain, dangerous job in the Pacific Theater of Operations, in charge of a landing craft landing Marine ashore during amphibious operations.) His mother was living in Yankton with her sister there and two brothers.

John

“I quit at mid-term because I ran out of money and I came back to Huron because I wanted to work,” he explained.

“Then I got drafted; I hadn’t gotten a job.” He remembers the date of that Uncle Sam letter: Feb. 7, 1962.

“My mom kind of shipped me off to my cousin (who lived in Avon),” he said. “She was older and married. I lived with them until I was in second grade. Then I moved back to Huron. Of course by then I didn’t even know my brothers, because when I left I was a baby.”

When his dad returned from the war, he returned to his job with the Department of Agriculture at its office in Huron. John also returned to Huron and attended St. Teresa’s parochial Catholic school, run by the Presentation Sisters from

See HOHENTHANER, page 4

Above: John Hohenthaner poses for a photo at Fort Hood in Texas.

Right: Soldiers move out after finally getting the call for Operation BIG LIFT.

Courtesy photo

Hohenthaner

Air Force brings love and marriage

n Brookings couple married on active duty

By John KuBal The Brookings Register

BROOKINGS – Military service has a way of bringing together people from different places and backgrounds to work for a common purpose –a mission. Long-lasting friendships are often formed. And now at a time when men and women in the military work more closely than they did in decades long ago, relationships leading to love and marriage are not uncommon. Such was the case for Anthony “Tony” Murray, 67, a native South Dakotan born in Sioux Falls,

and Debra “Deb” Richardson, 64, born and raised in Florien, Louisiana, and now married and living in Brookings.

“I left the day I graduated from high school (in 1976),” Deb, then 18, said. “There wasn’t much opportunity there. I grew up in a poor family, I didn’t know I had the option to go to college. I rambled around for about three or four months and then realized I could go into the Air Force. I had a couple of uncles who had been in the military.”

“I always thought I wanted to be a nurse or in the medical field,” she explained. “But I didn’t think I had the option. There was no money for college and I didn’t know there were other ways to go to college.”

She joined the Air Force in early 1977 and went to six

weeks of basic training (boot camp) at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio. Deb had hoped to go into an assignment in the medical field, but there were no openings and the wait would have been up to a year.

“I’m like, ‘What else you got?’” she asked. “I wanted to leave. I wanted to get my life started.” She was offered something in electronics at a time “when computers were starting to be big.” Laughing, she added, “I did high school on the typewriter.” She was expecting an assignment to “computers, or something like that.” It was not to be.

n Deb meets Tony

“I got to Tinker Air Force Base (Oklahoma City) and for my on-the-job training, I was

assigned to civil engineering as an electrician,” Deb said, again laughing. She was given books, a course and periodically tested: “It was very organized.”

After arriving at Tinker, she met Tony – “almost right way. We started dating and going out.” Tony was a welder in civil engineering and they worked in the same area.

“I was the only female in the electrical shop,” Debra explained. “There were about 60 men that I worked with and

I was very naïve and young. I think they were very uncomfortable because they had to watch their language.”

He was 23, she had just turned 20 when they married in March 1978. On their wedding day, the couple closed on a house they had purchased. Laughing again, Deb said, “Instead of a big wedding, we just had a minister marry us.”

She was pregnant with

HoHentHaner: Served in artillery unit during BIG LIFT

Continued from page 3

Aberdeen, through the eighth grade.

There was no Catholic high school in Huron, so he attended the public high school, graduating in the class of 1960. Following that came his somewhat brief stint as a student at SDSU that ended with no money and the draft.

n Cannon cocker, wrestler, lifeguard

Hohenthaner’s introduction to the United States Army came with basic training at Fort Collins, Colorado. His next stop took him to artillery school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Finally came his permanent duty station at Fort Hood, Texas.

“I was assigned to the 2nd Armored Division: Hell on Wheels,” he said. “I was in the fire direction center.” His unit was equipped entirely with self-propelled howitzers. They required no motor transport to move them. And the fire direction center “was in a big truck with no windows in it.”

“We’d go out on maneuvers: we’d have A Battery here and B Battery here and C Battery over here,” he explained. “We’d have like a forward observer, a lieutenant, who would call in. He’d say where the enemy is and give us the coordinates and an azimuth. We’d figure out which battery should fire.”

While Hohenthaner was for now far

removed from SDSU, it would in an interesting fashion catch up with on a fall day in 1963.

“I got called into the battery commander’s office,” he said. “You get called by the battery commander, you figure you done something wrong.” Not this time.

In checking Hohenthaner’s service record, his commander learned that the South Dakotan had wrestled in high school as a senior and at SDSU as a freshman, on a scholarship that covered some but not all his expenses. His commander wanted him “to try out for the Fourth Army wrestling team.” He did and made the cut, competing at 133 pounds. (Today he weighs 185.)

“I was just little,” he explained.” I didn’t grow until … I never shaved until I was 25. I was really late – in everything. We did a lot of tournaments against other teams and some colleges.”

When the wrestling season ended in spring, Hohenthaner was offered an unorthodox assignment: as a lifeguard at the officers’ club swimming pool. Come the end of summer, he was returned to his regular duties in the fire direction center.

And beginning on Oct. 22, 1963, he would participate in what would be the defining event of his military service. He had applied for an early release from active duty and it was approved. It didn’t happen.

n Operation BIG LIFT

“The Army decided they wanted a strategic airlift of troops, (including)the 2nd Armored Division I was part of,” Hohenthaner explained. “They airlifted 15,000 troops. We didn’t take the artillery; we had that in (West) Germany. This was the biggest deal they had ever done. They wanted to see if they could move an entire unit, like the 2nd Armored Division, in 72 hours. Actually, they did it in 60-some hours.”

His battery was moved on C-130 four-engine (prop) cargo planes to Germany via Goose Bay, Labrador, and Mildenhall, England. Following its arrival in Germany, the 2nd Armored Division, several other Army elements and NATO forces took part in a weeklong exercise (war-game) that simulated what would happen if Soviet and other Warsaw Pact military units invaded West Germany.

“I was in the rear detachment,” he added. “We had to clean up all the equipment, everything. We didn’t come back until Dec. 4.” Hohenthaner was still in Germany when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

“President Kennedy was supposed to give a big speech (on Nov. 22), because Operation BIG LIFT was his big deal,” he explained. It was to show that America could move its military might to anywhere in the world on short notice.

Hohenthaner was released from active duty on Jan.31, 1964. He returned

to Huron and then went back to SDSU, again on a partial scholarship and with funding via the GI Bill, and graduated in 1968. He would later earn two masters’ degrees: one in secondary school administration, guidance and counseling and a second in science. His life’s vocation was in education: He “coached football, wrestling and track for 40 years,” all at the high school level, both in the United States and abroad in Germany and Japan.

Hohenthaner married at 45. His wife died in 2010. They have two grown sons.

Looking back at his years in military service, and the life lessons he learned, he called them, “great, the greatest thing I ever did. The thing that was really great for me was the fact that at a young age when I kind of floundered, I didn’t know where I was going, what purpose I had in life, I wasn’t really very disciplined. Discipline is a very big thing. I became very disciplined. The military gave me the discipline I needed and understand.

“I finally understood that things don’t just come your way. You’ve got to work for them. You’ve got to buckle down, decide what you want to do.

“I probably never would have gotten through college, probably wouldn’t have done anything if I hadn’t been in the military. I might have just gotten a job somewhere and that would have been the end of it.”

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.

Debra Richardson

Anthony Murray

Marriage: GI Bill helped couple with college costs

Continued from page 4

their first child 18 months later – and six months into her pregnancy she got orders to Shemya Air Force Base, Alaska, a remote area on the western tip of the Aleutian Islands.

“I would have had to leave Tony and the baby for a year to take those orders, ” Deb said. “I couldn’t do that; so I got out.” There was a possibility she could have turned down those orders; but “she didn’t want to take the chance.” She had served a total of 2 1/2 years.

While Tony was born in Sioux Falls, he grew up in Lake Andes and graduated from high school there in 1973. Following graduation, he worked construction for a summer.

“The following year I decided I’ve got to get something better in life, so I joined the Air Force,” he explained. “I went to basic training at Lackland.” He initially wanted to get into electronics but was not qualified because he was color blind; he then received orders to Chanute Air Force Base (near Champaign County, Illinois) where he would attend school to become a “metal processing specialist,” aka a welder.

“It was really a very good course,” he said of the Air Force school he attended. “You learned everything about the chemistry of metals and then heat-treating them to build them lighter and stronger and how to test them. And then you went into the welding aspect, all different types: acetylene, argon, arc welding. What they’re training you for is to weld jet-engine parts.” After graduating from school, he was assigned to Tinker in 1975.

“When I got out, they stuck me in civil engineering, in which you weld everything but jet-engine parts,” he explained. “It was more structural. You knew what you were going to weld from day to day – anything that needed welding. There was something new just about every day. I enjoyed it.”

Tony served for a total of five years and two months, having extended for a year when Debra was pregnant. “I got orders to Okinawa for three years. I was going to get out anyway.”

While he was at Tinker, he was able to attend college at night off-base and complete most of the requirements for entry into chiropractic school. The Air Force paid about 75 percent of his school fees.

n A circuitous road to Brookings

Following his release from active duty in 1979, Tony and Deb stayed in Oklahoma for about a year and he completed the last bit of schooling needed for chiropractic school. He used his welding skills while doing that, some of it working with a friend on “customized motorcycle parts.”

“It kept us above ground, you bet,” he explained, as Deb laughed.

Their next stop was for four years at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. While Tony was considering other careers in medicine or dentistry, he considered one major question: “What kind of life did you have, as far as family life?” There are no 24/7 shifts, no on-call 24/7. “I really didn’t know much about chiropractic. Something clicked.”

The GI Bill helped cover the cost of his education. And following graduation, the couple sold the house they had bought on their wedding day and used the equity to help cover the rest of the tab.

Tony’s career as a chiropractor took the family to Many, Louisiana, and then

farther south, to Hammond, Louisiana, on the outskirts of New Orleans.

But they missed the people and the changing weather of the Midwest – and Deb considered Louisiana’s dangers from criminal activity: “I didn’t want to raise our children there and be afraid every time they were outside.” Next and final stop was Brookings in December 1989. Tony found a practice where a chiropractor had retired.

Since Deb had trained in Oklahoma City to be a laboratory technician and X-ray technician, she also was able to find a career in Brookings. She recently retired from South Dakota State University, where she was as a microbiologist in veterinary science.

The Murrays have three sons: one is serving full-time in the South Dakota Air National Guard here in Brookings; one in Rapid City, who served as an Army combat infantryman in Iraq. The couple have two grandsons and two granddaughters.

Tony’s dad is a Navy veteran and he has two brothers who are Army and Air Force veterans.

Quite a few veterans in the family.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.

Logistician to lawyer

n Supply Corps

Officer,

United States Navy

By John KuBal The Brookings Register

BROOKINGS – Retired attorney Michael “Mike” McCann is a native of Brookings, and except for being away for education and military service has lived most of his life here. And while he didn’t plan to join the Navy to see the world, it turned out that he did.

Following graduation from Brookings High School, class of 1962, he had an appointment to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. It wasn’t to be.

“They did pre-physicals and I didn’t realize it at the time,” McCann explained. “They sent me out to Rapid City for a physical. I got washed out because of hearing and eyesight.”

Instead of West Point, he attended Marietta College, a small private school in Ohio, with small classes. “I figured I’d thrive better in a small setting, rather than in large classes,” he explained. “My dad (William McCann, Sr.) had gone to the University of Nebraska for a year and was really dissatisfied with large classes.”

“At that time the Vietnam War was really going strong,” McCann said of his senior year in 1966. “They were doing a lot of drafting. We didn’t have any ROTC program at Marietta, but recruiters came around. So we went in almost on a lark to recruiters, visited with them and they asked me and some other fraternity brothers to take a test.” A senior at the time, majoring in political science and with a minor in accounting and looking to graduate, he was already thinking of law school and had been accepted by the University of South Dakota (Vermillion), where his father had graduated in 1939, been drafted and served in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II.

Laughing as he recalled the visit to the recruiter in January 1966, McCann noted that his classmates “were thinking we’ll go in the Marines. They were real macho. I was thinking Navy. I did well on the test and they asked me if I would like to go to the recruiting station in Ashland, Kentucky, which I did. They interviewed me and I agreed to go into the Navy. They signed me in there.”

The Navy gave McCann two waivers: one for hearing and another for eyesight. “They signed me up to go into the Navy Supply Corps as a reserve officer.”

After he returned home to Brookings for the summer months following graduation, he had calls from the Navy to see if he had graduated and if his grades were good.

“I had a job as a mower boy for the city for the Water and Sewer Department,” he added. “They had enough grounds that they could keep me mowing all the time.”

He confirmed with the Navy that he had indeed graduated and in late July 1966 he reported to Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. While he was familiar with the concept of being a “90-day wonder,” he noted that OCS was more like “about five months.” He graduated in December 1966 and was commissioned an ensign. From there he went to Navy Supply School in Marietta, Georgia. The course ran from January to July 1967.

n Anchors aweigh

His first assignment followed: sea duty aboard the USS Marias (AO-57), a fleet oiler that had served in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II. Its mission was to provide petroleum products to ships underway at sea.

Still an ensign, McCann was the junior of two Supply Corps officers assigned to Marias, which was home-ported in Norfolk, Virginia. It had a crew of about 215 enlisted and about a dozen officers.

“(Norfolk) was our home-port, but we were seldom there and never in the harbor, because we carried fuel,” he explained. “We would either refuel at a fuel dump, which would be in a remote location or we’d refuel out at sea.

“Navy ships don’t normally refuel in port. All the ships are well-trained to refuel at sea. They do it all the time. And we refuel them.”

A refueling at sea is a carefully orchestrated event: It starts with a “shot line” fired from the oiler to the ship being refueled and then several lines increase in size until large lines bring the fuel lines from the oiler to the ship being refueled. Then both ships steam along very close to each other, all the while keeping their safe distances from each other. Even with all safety procedures in place, there have been occasional collisions. Refueling an aircraft carrier was always inter-

Mike McCann

esting.

“I tell you, that’s an experience, when you’re refueling a carrier,” Mc”Cann said, laughing a bit. “It’s hanging over the top of you. It’s very large, although we were a big ship, too. We were heavy when we were full of fuel, we were long and had a deep draft.”

McCann spent about three years aboard Marias. His deployments included two cruises, about six months each, into the Mediterranean Sea, at which time the ship was a part of the Sixth Fleet. Ports of call included Naples, Italy; Cartagena, Spain; Cannes, France; Athens, Greece; Turkey; and Malta.

He called the port visits a “sweet and sour” experience. The crew had “port and starboard liberty,” meaning that while one-half of the crew was ashore the other half remained on duty aboard ship. So time ashore was brief.

And while the Marias was in its homeport in CONUS, it maintained a hardworking and training schedule with short cruises. “You’re not at home very long,” McCann explained.

“Th Marias was out running around doing stuff all the time.”

He was single during his active duty years and lived aboard the ship in his stateroom.

n Back into civies

McCann left active duty as a lieutenant (junior grade). In 1969 he was automatically promoted to lieutenant, although he was never a drilling reservist. With his Navy service obligation complete, he started law school in 1969 and graduated in 1972. He received no scholarships. However, his GI Bill benefits helped defray the cost.

He joined his father in the law offices of McCann, Martin and Mickelson here in Brookings. “We were all general practitioners. In South Dakota, we’re a small town.”

He retired in 2015. He stays involved in his church; he’s a Shriner. Beyond that he finds time for some “lake-cabin fishing” and he “tries to keep his wife, Judy, happy.” The couple had four children, losing a son to an auto-immune disease.

And his being a veteran is part of a McCann tradition of military service: his father in World War II and an older brother, William R. McCann, Jr., a graduate of the United States Naval Academy who served 27 years on active duty and retired as a captain.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@ brookingsregister.com.

Brookings lawyer served in JAG Corps

n Taught Army officers the UCMJ

By John KuBal The Brookings Register

BROOKINGS – Lewayne Erickson was born on a farm in Argonne, Miner County, in 1938. The town is now extinct. “I’m the fourth child in a family of five; so that meant that my older siblings all went through the (Great) Depression with my parents on a farm in Miner County, South Dakota.”

if you owned land you didn’t much by way of government benefits, Erickson explained. While the family farm was owned by Erickson’s parents it was heavily mortgaged.

Two of his older siblings, 15 and 10 years old respectively, “they graduated from high school, they got a job and moved on. The third one, my brother 4 years older than me, was kind of destined to take over the family farm.”

Erickson was one of 18 juniors at Argonne High School. The next year when he was a senior, the high school was closed. He had a choice of several high schools to choose from; he picked Howard High School.

At 6’1’’, 181 pounds, he turned out to be a good athlete in both basketball and football. He started at left tackle, even though he had never played football. Determined to earn money to help pay for college, he worked for the next three summers at the Pan-O-Gold Baking Co. in Pipestone, Minnesota. “We baked thousands of loaves of bread a week,” Erickson said. “I worked nights, because

you got 10 cents an hour more. And it got me through college. I graduated on time.”

He started pre-law classes at the University of South Dakota (Vermillion) in fall 1956 and also enrolled in Army ROTC. However, in his junior year he changed his major to accounting. In May 1960, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. Additionally, he

was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army.

Midway through his senior year at USD, Erickson married Nancy Tobin. He had met her the last day of his freshman year. She taught first grade in Vermillion.

Rather than order the butter-bar lieutenant to active duty, the Army gave him a three-year waiver to attend USD law school: “As long as I kept my grades up,” he explained. “I did well in law school. I loved law school.”

Following graduation from law school in September 1963, he passed the South Dakota bar exam before going on active duty. He was automatically promoted to first lieutenant in the Army’s Judge Advocate General Corps – aka JAG – and assigned to an officer orientation course at Fort Benjamin Harrison (Indianapolis).

Following completion of the course, Erickson was offered the opportunity to stay on as a legal instructor at the Command and Staff Department of the Judge Advocate General School. He eagerly accepted the offer.

“I spent the remainder of my twoyear commitment teaching all the legal subjects that officers need to know to be officers in the United States Army,”

Lewayne Erickson

Mathematician, surveyor, gunner

n Pinpointing where the guns are placed

By John KuBal The Brookings Register

BROOKINGS – The United States Army was ready to send Dan Kemp to war. But he wanted to wait a couple years first. The Army agreed; and it worked out well for both him and the Army.

The retired South Dakota State University mathematics professor, now living in Brookings, is a native of Birwin, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His father worked in a bank in downtown Chicago. They lived in a little town called Riverside, strictly a residential area. Kemp grew up there through high school. He graduated in 1959 and then attended Knox College (Galesburg, Illinois), from where both his parents had graduated.

“In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, any able-bodied male was going to get drafted when the time came,” Kemp noted. “So I enrolled in ROTC. If you’re going to go into the Army, you might as well go in as a lieutenant. You get more money, and perhaps better living conditions.” He graduated in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

Knowing he wanted to go further in his study of mathematics, he got a twoyear deferment to attend the University of Arizona (Tucson). He graduated in 1965 with a master’s degree. Now it was time for two years of active duty.

Kemp was commissioned a second lieutenant and ordered to Fort Riley, Kansas, for basic training. Then came a tour of duty in an artillery unit at Fort Hood, Texas.

“At some point we took a math test and I was the best in the class at logarithms,” he explained. “And because I could do logarithms, I was assigned to be a survey officer. In artillery, one of the positions is the survey officer who locates the positions of (our) guns and the directions that they might fire in.” Coordinates for where the artillery shells

should impact were determined by a forward observer on the ground or by a forward observer in a spotter plane.

“So that was great fun,” Kemp noted. “I had never done any surveying before, but I learned how to do military surveying. I really enjoyed it, because at that time all the calculations were done by hand. You had worksheets that you would fill out the dimensions that you measured and the angle that you measured and then you would do certain operations to them to get what numbers you wanted out of them.”

He added that the entire procedure was done manually, using the Table of Logarithms. On one occasion, however, there was an attempt to use what might be considered a rudimentary computer.

“At one point they brought in a piece of electronic equipment,” Kemp explained. “It was the size of a small refrigerator. It was supposed to be a computer that would do this sort of thing; but it required another thing about the size of a refrigerator to power it. It was not practical at all. It would be much easier to do it by hand, straightforward. I enjoyed figuring out why the worksheet worked.”

n Time for a tour in ‘Nam

About June 1966 he was ordered to Vietnam to be a survey officer.

“I remember going out to the West Coast to catch a plane and being put on a plane to Vietnam,” Kemp said. “I got off with papers that told somebody where I should go. I ended up in An Khe in central Vietnam.” He was to be the survey officer for a heavy artillery battalion: 8-inch, self-propelled howitzers.

“We didn’t go very far,” he recalled. “We would move around a little bit and support operations. But we were in camp most of the time. Part of our unit was a Piper Cub spotter plane. He would go up, find some activity and call in coordinates and we would shoot at it.

“My job was to pinpoint where the guns were, so that the people who were trying to decide where to shoot knew where they were. I never saw the results

of anything. I saw the guns shoot, but I wasn’t part of the team.

“I remember the team that actually fired the guns. They would sit out there and play Dianna Ross and the Supremes. It was loud as could be.”

Kemp did note that his unit’s position came under attack on one occasion. With it all well behind him in the past, he succinctly summed up his tour of combat duty: “We shot pretty much daily, firing the heavy artillery.”

To that he added, “I had good people that I worked with while I was there.”

Like all GIs on a tour duty in Vietnam, Kemp was allowed an R and R (rest and relaxation) break during his yearlong tour. He went to Japan and toured around for about a week.

Before he left for Vietnam, he had gotten engaged to Michele Cafone. She was a student at the University of Texas (Austin). He met her at Fort Hood on a blind date: “She wasn’t my date; she was somebody else’s date. But I recognized her as a good choice.”

They planned to marry when he

returned. So he bought stainless steel flatware and pottery. He shipped them back home and all arrived in one piece and are all still in use. The pottery got broken over time. He also sent similar such items to his sister and mother. And like many a GI serving in Vietnam, or other American bases or on Navy ships in the Far East, he bought a state-of-theart camera, in his case a 35 mm Minolta.

Kemp returned to CONUS in summer 1967. He and Michele married shortly thereafter – at Fort Hood, where Michele’s father, a career Army officer was stationed.

n A love for mathematics

Following his release from active duty in 1967, Kemp took a teaching position at Washford University (Topeka, Kansas): algebra, elementary statistics, trigonometry and eventually some calculus.

“After a couple years of that I decided that I really enjoy this and want to make a career of this,” he said. “My depart-

Dan Kemp

Lawyer: In retirement, devoted to public service

Continued from page 7

Erickson explained. Eighty percent of his students were second lieutenants or first lieutenants like himself. About 20 percent were career officers: captains, majors and lieutenant colonels, all in assignments requiring a basic understanding of military justice, which is many ways is different from the legal world civilian attorneys work in. A big subject for his students was the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

One lasting memory of his days at Fort Benjamin Harrison came following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963: “The day after his death – I think there’s a general order that when the commander-in-chief dies, there will be a formation and a reading of the general order at noon the day after his death in every time-zone in the world at all (United States) military installations.

“So we were in a formation on the

parade ground: all the students, all the faculty, anybody that was in the active military.”

n Back into civies

“I was encouraged to stay in,” Erickson said. “I think I was a pretty good instructor. I was the (most junior) ranking officer in this department. I had a good time working with the higher ranking officers, and they treated me like I was a captain or major. But I did get out.”

Erickson noted that in September 1965, “Vietnam was heating up. We didn’t know what was going to happen there. There were lots of rumors that people were going to get frozen in service.

“I had two opportunities to come Brookings to practice law. I had already accepted one before the second one became available,” he explained. “I came to Brookings by the 30th of September

1965. I had no place to live or anything, because I didn’t know if I was going to go to Vietnam.”

While he was on active duty, he and Nancy had a son, David, born in a military hospital in Indianapolis. “We called him our Hoosier Army brat,” Erickson said, smiling. “It cost us $7.50 to bring him home.”

He went into practice with Frank Denholm, an already established attorney, and was there about four years. He would later practice with George Mickelson, who became governor of South Dakota in 1986, about a year after Erickson joined his firm. But he would ultimately spend about two-thirds of his career in solo practice for 23 years in an office on Sixth Street. His secretary spent the rest of her career working there.

With a degree in accounting in addition to law degree, Erickson spent a lot of time working on trusts and estates. He retired in 2017, but people still ask his advice on these issues.

“I had the same secretary for 48 years,” he said. “She’s the reason I retired. She was turning 70. She wanted to quit.”

In addition to David, he and Nancy had a second son, Drew, then 34, who died of a brain tumor in 2001. He has a married daughter living in Brookings. They had five grandchildren. After a prolonged illness Nancy died in 2013. They had been married 53 years.

In retirement, Erickson has devoted his time to public service here in Brookings: he sits on the United Way Board and the Traffic Safety Board and is active in the Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the American Legion.

“The Army took advantage of my education. And I’m glad they did, because it really helped me later. I learned to stand up before 50-some people and talk, which I had to do several times a week.”

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.

‘Guardians’ to be unveiled at S.D. Veterans Cemetery

SIOUX FALLS –The South Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs will host an unveiling ceremony at the South Dakota Veterans Cemetery in Sioux Falls on Friday at 1 p.m.

Unveiled will be two eagle sculptures on the gates of the main entrance.

Eagles are common symbols of wisdom, vision, might, regality and ferocity. The eagle eye is seen as a symbol of sharpness and accuracy, with the piercing gaze representing protection and vigilance.

“The eagles will serve as the guardians of the cemetery, watching over the vet-

erans and their loved ones who chose to make the cemetery their forever home,” said Cemetery Director Erin Brown.

The sculptures were funded by private donations and by sculptor Jurek Jakowicz. Paul Weckman of Sanford Health spearheaded this project and secured all of the

donated funds.

“We are excited and honored to share this day with our partners,” said Brown. “We truly appreciate all that contributed their talents and funds to this endeavor.”

– From the S.D. Department of Veterans Affairs

Air Force veteran kept aircrews safe

n ‘Your life is our business’

By John KuBal The Brookings Register

BROOKINGS – “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after I graduated from high school,” said Christopher Gross, Madison High School, class of 1990. “I was interested in math and science. I didn’t know if I wanted to go to college.” A neighbor and a friend had tried the Air Force and liked it. Gross visited the Air Force recruiter in Sioux Falls and signed up.

He took a battery of tests and apparently scored well: “I guess maybe because of the testing or what I was interested in, they gave me the Aircrew Life Support Technician job. We maintain basically all the aircrew members’ flying safety gear.”

First stop on the way to active duty came in September 1990, when he reported for six weeks of basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio. In more ways than one, he learned what military service might demand.

“When I went to basic in September 1990, all the training instructors, TIs, said, ‘You guys better pack your sandals; you’re going to the desert when you’re done.’

“You could go to the Kuwait area or Saudi Arabia, because the conflict had just started with Operation Desert Shield back in August 1990.”

Following that came a six-week technical school at Chanute Air Force Base, Rantoul, Illinois. Gross graduated in December. On Jan. 2, 1991, he reported to Fairchild Air Force Base, Spokane, Washington. A part of SAC (the Strategic Air Command), the base was home to B-52 bombers, KC-135 tankers, T-37 trainer jets, and UH-1 “Huey” helicopters. It would be his permanent duty station until he left active duty in September 1994.

When Operation Desert Shield, the air and ground war, started in January 1991, Gross was at Fairchild. “Our shop was set to deploy to support our aircraft and we started to pack and mobilize our aircraft, get our shots,” he explained. “But a few days to a week before we were to depart, we were told our shop didn’t have to deploy. We unpacked and I continued

my OJT. So I never, ever did go and serve in theater in time of conflict.”

n ‘Your life, our business

“As a life support technician, my job was to maintain (and inspect) aircrew members with ‘flying safety gear.’ That included such things as helmets, oxygen masks, survival kits, and chemical warfare gear.

“Our motto was, ‘Your life is our business.’” The job required various “levels” of skill-set training.

“For the first nine months or so when I got to Fairchild, I was on OJT,” Gross explained. “Once I was trained officially I was free to work on anything.”

However, as an aircrew life support specialist, Gross did not work on ejection seats or parachutes. That work was done by “egress” specialists.

While his job was to keep flight crews safe, he himself was in a billet that did not earn him flight pay. However, he would volunteer to fly whenever the opportunity arose.

“I got a few ‘incentive flights,’ as we called them,” he explained. “One day when we went to take some gear over to the helicopter detachment, the captain there had asked us what we were doing that day. We told him it was just a normal day of working.”

He and a fellow technician were invited to take a flight and their boss approved. “I got a flight on a UH1 helicopter (Huey) that day.”

A really memorable incentive flight came when Gross deployed for two weeks of temporary duty to Royal Air Force Base, Fairford, England, in June 1992.

“Our base had a bunch of (B-52) bombers deploy there for a training exercise. It wasn’t like war-related; I mean it was like a training thing. So they sent about a six of us life-support guys over to maintain the equipment.

“While I was there, I got to fly a mission with them. They flew up over Germany and back, a six-hour mission. It was pretty cool.”

He wouldn’t get another “pretty cool” incentive flight until his last week of active duty: “They let me go up and fly a mission with a KC-135 tanker. I got to watch them refuel an F-15 fighter. I could watch

out the window and planes would come up and the boom would come out, click into the receptacle and transfer the fuel. Yeah, it was pretty cool.”

n Back home, to SDSU

With the exception of occasional TDY assignments, Gross spent the remainder of his service at Fairchild. Come August 1994, he took terminal leave and prepared to return to South Dakota and attend South Dakota State University.

“My dad flew out to Fairchild the end of August and we packed up my stuff, loaded up a Ryder truck with a trailer, put my pickup on it and we drove back home to Madison.

“My mom and dad had signed me up for college and got me an apartment. The day I got home and the day I started school was about a week apart.”

He majored in mechanical engineering, completed his studies at SDSU and graduated with a bachelor of science degree – in May 2000, six schoolyears. He was self-supporting and used his GI Bill dollars and worked 20 to 30 hours to cover the cost of his education.

He had worked at Daktronics from 1997 to 2000 as a “student engineer.” Following graduation, he worked there fulltime. He would later work at several other Brookings-area business-

es.

He’s now employed at SDSU as a “project manager in the Facilities and Services Department.”

His wife, Kathy, whom he married in August 2000, teaches English at Brookings High School. They have two sons and

a daughter.

n Legion, car club, Scouting

In the American Legion since about 2000, Gross moved up

Courtesy photos

Above: Christopher Gross gets hoisted and splashes in this training to simulate the rotowash from helicopter blades. Below: Gross carries a big pack in combat land survival school in the Colville National Forest.

U.S. military seeks to address mental health

WASHINGTON (AP) — After finishing a tour in Afghanistan in 2013, Dionne Williamson felt emotionally numb. More warning signs appeared during several years of subsequent overseas postings.

“It’s like I lost me somewhere,” said Williamson, a Navy lieutenant commander who experienced disorientation, depression, memory loss and chronic exhaustion. “I went to my captain and said, ‘Sir, I need help. Something’s wrong.’”

As the Pentagon seeks to confront spiraling suicide rates in the military ranks, Williamson’s experiences shine a light on the realities for service members seeking mental health help. For most, simply acknowledging their difficulties can be intimidating. And what comes next can be frustrating and dispiriting.

Williamson, 46, eventually found stability through a monthlong hospitalization and a therapeutic program that incorporates horseback riding. But she had to fight for years to get the help she needed. “It’s a wonder how I made it through,” she said.

In March, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the creation of an independent committee to review the military’s mental health and suicide prevention programs.

According to Defense Department data, suicides among active-duty service members increased by more than 40% between 2015 and 2020. The numbers jumped by 15% in 2020 alone. In longtime suicide hotspot postings such as Alaska – service members and their families contend with extreme isolation and a harsh climate – the rate has doubled.

A 2021 study by the Cost

of War Project concluded that since 9/11, four times as many service members and veterans have died by suicide as have perished in combat. The study detailed stress factors particular to military life: “high exposure to trauma – mental, physical, moral, and sexual – stress and burnout, the influence of the military’s hegemonic mascu-

line culture, continued access to guns, and the difficulty of reintegrating into civilian life.”

The Pentagon did not respond to repeated requests for comment. But Austin has publicly acknowledged that the Pentagon’s current mental health offerings – including a Defense Suicide Prevention Office established in 2011 –

have proven insufficient.

“It is imperative that we take care of all our teammates and continue to reinforce that mental health and suicide prevention remain a key priority,” Austin wrote in March. “Clearly we have more work to do.”

Last year the Army issued fresh guidelines to its commanders on how to handle

mental health issues in the ranks, complete with briefing slides and a script. But daunting long-term challenges remain. Many soldiers fear the stigma of admitting to mental health issues within the internal military culture of self-sufficiency. And those who seek help often find that stigma is not only real,

AP photo/Susan Walsh

Dionne Williamson, of Patuxent River, Maryland., grooms Woody before her riding lesson at Cloverleaf Equine Center in Clifton, Virginia on Sept. 1. After finishing a tour in Afghanistan in 2013, Williamson felt emotionally numb. As the Pentagon seeks to confront spiraling suicide rates in the military ranks, Williamson’s experiences shine a light on the realities for service members seeking mental health help.

Gross: Had the time of his life in the Air Force

Continued from page 12

through the ranks: second vice-commander, first vice-commander and then commander from 2008 to 2011. For about the past eight years he has served as “Americanism” officer, “helping kids understand what it is to be a citizen of America.”

Since May 2000 he has also been a member of the Brookings Car Club and president since 2005.

Finally, he has been as a leader in Boy Scouts. His two sons, Dawson and Christopher Gross, Jr., have also been involved in Scouting. Christopher, Jr, was honored as an Eagle Scout this past January. He’s now studying biochemical engineering at the University of

Minnesota.

A daughter, Allison, is a junior studying pharmacy at SDSU.

“I’m very proud of my veteran’s status,” Gross said. “My grandfather, John Tschetter, was a World War II veteran. … He’d tell me all his stories about crossing the ocean. I believe he was in (Lt. Gen. George) Patton’s Third Army. He was active in the American Legion,

so I joined.

“Like I said, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after high school. My friend had gone into the Air Force, my neighbor across the street said good things about it.

“The Air Force was cool. I’d do it all over again. It was the time of my life.”

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.

HealtH: Officials addressing serious issue among soldiers

Continued from page 13

but compounded by bureaucratic obstacles.

Much like the issue of food insecurity in military families, a network of military-adjacent charitable organizations has tried to fill the gaps with a variety of programs and outreach efforts.

Some are purely recreational, such as an annual fishing tournament in Alaska designed to provide fresh air and socialization for service members. Others are more focused on self-care, like an Armed Services YMCA program that offers free childcare so that military parents can attend therapy sessions.

The situation in Alaska is particularly dire. In January, after a string of suicides, Command Sgt. Maj. Phil Blaisdell addressed his soldiers in an emotional Instagram post. “When did suicide become the answer,” he asked. “Please send me a DM if you need something. Please …”

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said that while posting to Alaska can be a dream for some service members, it’s a solitary nightmare for others that needs to be addressed.

“You’ve got to be paying attention to this when you see the statistics jump as they are,” Murkowski said. “Right now, you’ve got everybody. You’ve got

the Joint Chiefs looking at Alaska and saying, ‘Holy smokes, what’s going on up there?’”

The stresses of an Alaska posting are compounded by a shortage of on-theground therapists. During a visit to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska earlier this year, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth heard from base health care workers who say they are understaffed, burned out and can’t see patients on a timely basis. If a soldier seeks help, they often have to wait weeks for an appointment.

“We have people who need our services and we can’t get to them,” one longtime counselor told Wormuth during a meeting. “We need staff and until we get them, we will continue to have soldiers die.”

The annual Combat Fishing Tournament in Seward, Alaska, was formed to “get the kids out of the barracks, get them off the base for the day and get them out of their heads,” said co-founder Keith Manternach.

The tournament, which was begun in 2007 and now involves more than 300 service members, includes a day of deep-water fishing followed by a celebratory banquet with prizes for the largest catch, smallest catch and the person who gets the sickest.

“I think there’s a huge element of mental health to it,” Manternach said.

Kemp: Loves mathematics

Continued from page 10

ment head at the time told me, ‘You really need to get your doctorate. You can’t really make a career with a master’s.”

His department head had received his doctorate from Oklahoma State University (Stillwater). Kemp applied for OSU’s doctorate program and was accepted. About this same time, Michele’s parents had moved to Norman, Oklahoma, about 80 miles away because her father had retired from the Army. “That was pretty close, so we could go down and visit.”

He got his doctorate in 1975. “I couldn’t find a job that year that I graduated,” he explained. “The market was really tight. So I taught a year at Oklahoma State as an instructor. During that time I was looking for a job. I found this job at South Dakota State University in Brookings,

South Dakota.

“I didn’t know much about SDSU. I came up here for a visit. It seemed like a pretty nice place. I liked the people. So I accepted the job and we came up here (in August 1976). We had an apartment arranged. Two days later I started work. I’ve been here ever since and really enjoyed it.”

Kemp taught “calculus, differential equations, real analysis, linear algebra, almost everything that they offer at the undergraduate level.” He retired in January 2019.

In retirement, he’s enjoyed bird-watching and gardening. And since about 1987 he’s been a staying force with planning and putting on the Brookings Summer Arts Festival.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.

It’s not just in Alaska.

Sgt. Antonio Rivera, an 18-year veteran who completed three tours in Iraq and a year at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, freely acknowledges that he has serious PTSD.

“I know that I need help. There’s signs and I’ve waited long enough,” said Rivera, 48, who is assigned to Fort Hood in Texas. “I don’t want my children to suffer because of me not going to get help.”

He’s doing yoga, but says he needs more. He’s reluctant to seek help inside the military.

“Personally I’d feel more comfortable being able to talk to someone outside,” he said. “It would allow me to open up a lot more without having to be worried about how it’s going to affect my career.”

Others who speak up say it’s a struggle to get assistance.

Despite the on-base presence of “tons of briefings and brochures on suicide and PTSD,” Williamson said she found herself fighting for years to get time off and therapy.

Eventually, she entered a monthlong in-patient program in Arizona. When she returned, a therapist recommended equine-assisted therapy, which proved to be a breakthrough.

Now Williamson is a regular at the Cloverleaf Equine Center in Clifton, Virginia, where riding sessions can be combined with a variety of therapeutic practices and exercises. Working with horses has long been used as a form for therapy for people with physical or mental disabilities and children diagnosed with autism. But in recent years, it has been embraced for helping service members with anxiety and PTSD.

Kubal: Honoring those who answered the call to serve

Continued from page 2

Generation,” who were born and came of age during the Great Depression, volunteered or were drafted. And the Korean War and the Vietnam War put American warriors in uniform in the same fashion: draftees and volunteers. All who served honorably in those wars deserve our undying gratitude and a BRAVO ZULU for a job well done.

Who would serve in uniform in our nation’s future wars changed with a paradigm shift: In 1973, while the Nixon administration was in office, the draft was done away with as the AVF (AllVolunteer Force) was stood up. The AVF would fight in the Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan and in the (never-ending?) war on terrorism.

Perhaps it’s a touch of irony that the 2015 edition offered a roll call of only World War II veterans telling their stories:

Richard Wahlstrom (Rolling with Patton: Retired prof recalls World II service); Harold S. Bailey, Jr. (Pharmacist serves (in World War II) in both Europe, the Pacific); George “Dale” Wagner (Tales of a tin-can sailor: Brookings man sees close-up action in the Pacific); James Bailey (Veterans and veterinarians: Father, son served in Army during world wars); Arnold Adams (Present for the first post-war big bangs: Brookings man takes part in ‘Operation Crossroads); Lloyd Darnall (Getting his start in the Seabees (Darnall became Brookings’ first city engineer); and Philip R. Blackford (Gunnery to Dentistry: Air Corps vet spent career in Brookings).

I admit that I stacked the deck a bit when it came to telling the stories of America’s Greatest Generation and also the stories of Korean War veterans. I regret that I missed good stories about both those groups, sometimes not hearing about their military service until I read their obituaries.

Whether I’ll find any stories about these veterans for future Veterans Day special editions is unlikely. Our still-surviving World War II veterans are well into their 90s, with many near the century mark. Korean War veterans are not far behind, with the youngest being in their late 80s or early-to-middle 90s. And even younger Vietnam War veterans are likely to be in their 70s and a few in their early 80s. I’ll still tell their stories as I find them. I’ve told quite a few stories of the AVF veterans who fought in America’s wars, which at times seemed to be never-ending. I’ll continue to tell their stories as I find them.

This year’s special edition features a mix of veterans: Four, whom I can relate to as coming of draft age during the years in which every able-bodied American man was subject to owing six years to Uncle Sam, and who served in both war and peace, and three Air Force AVF veterans

Two of the Air Force veterans met, fell

in love and married while on active duty. The third continues to be be one of the most dedicated veterans I’ve known, his having served and continuing to serve in many roles in the American Legion.

Of the six-years-for-Uncle-Sam veterans, two were “cannon cockers” who served in Army artillery units. The other two are retired attorneys here in Brookings; one served as a lawyer in the Army JAG Corps, the other as a junior officer in the Navy Supply Corps.

I especially enjoyed my interview with the latter. We had both served on fleet oilers in the 1960s: he was aboard the USS Marias (AO-57); I was on the USS Caliente (AO-53). Those were the days, my friend.

To all our nation’s military veterans, I wish you a memorable Veterans Day –and I extend warm regards, a BZ and a heartfelt “Thank you for your service.”

Contact John Kubal at jklubal@brookingsregister.com.

Special veterans event to be held in Harrisburg

PIERRE – The South Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs will host a “What’s Brewing” program in Harrisburg,. Working in partnership with Lincoln County Veterans Service Officer Susan Irons, the department wants the opportunity to visit one-on-one with veterans and see what’s brewing.The “What’s Brewing”

program will be held in the “Little Theatre” at the High School in Harrisburg (1300 E. Willow Street), at 7 p.m. on Nov.15.

“What’s Brewing,” is a great opportunity for us to visit with veterans and hear first-hand about the issues they might be experiencing, as well as allow us an opportunity to brief them on new benefits

and services,” said SDDVA Secretary Greg Whitlock. The SDDVA team and CVSO Irons will address questions about veterans’ benefits, including compensation, education, pension, healthcare, burial, state veterans cemetery and state veterans home. They will also be prepared to brief veterans on the new Honoring our

Pact Act of 2022. For more information, contact the SDDVA team, at 605-333-6869; or locate a county or tribal veterans service officer by visiting: https://vetaffairs. sd.gov/veteransserviceofficers/locatevso. aspx.

– From the S.D. Department of Veterans Affairs