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FEATURE // STORY BY LEO ADAM BIGA // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY
The L uc k y Coin
HOW A VIETNAM WAR MEMENTO IS HELPING AMERICAN MILITARY RETURN HOME SAFE FROM OVERSEAS DEPLOYMENT FEATURE // STORY BY LEO ADAM BIGA // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY
The two men met as strangers. By the time the gregarious Peterson swapped war stories with Rauch, and everyone had washed down salutary beers and shots, they were buddies. Peterson offered his coin with the usual stipulation, “Bring it back in one piece.” “Do you mean bring myself back in one piece, or the coin?” Rauch asked Peterson. “Hopefully both,” Peterson replied. He battled post-traumatic stress from Vietnam for the rest of his life. But Peterson was a fighter; he endured, even surviving a bout with cancer. The coin got Peterson safely home in 1970. He punched a hole in it and wore it on his keychain. He threw himself into veterans affairs. Two decades elapsed before he passed the coin to another serviceman going off to fight in the Gulf War. So began a tradition that saw him give the coin to deploying servicemen—always on the condition they bring it back. They all did. Homecoming and a Funeral
I
The last recipient to return with the coin was National Guardsman Cody Rauch, who carried it to Iraq and Afghanistan while deployed with the U.S. Army.
N THE AFTERMATH of the 1969 Tet
Offensive, U.S. Marine Pat Peterson found a Vietnamese coin on the ground while serving a tour of duty in the Vietnam War. The date on the coin was 1966—the same year he graduated from Holy Name High School in Omaha. That persuaded Peterson to adopt the memento as a personal good luck charm. He carried it with his dog tags. As the runt of his infantry squad, Peterson was often lowered by his ankles to inspect openings in underground tunnels. If he saw mounds of steaming hot food below, the tunnel was in active use by Viet Cong. Then they would pull him out and toss grenades inside. One time, after the grenades dropped, screaming women and children fled from the other end of the tunnel. That image—and other horrors—seared into his mind.
Rauch accepted. Supporting Fellow Soldiers Peterson’s concern for active duty or retired military extended to serving as a Veterans of Foreign Wars post commander (VFW Post 2503) and as a volunteer services representative at the VA Hospital. “He was very active in everything veterans,” says Teresa Burks, Peterson’s longtime partner who has worked as a nurse at the hospital for 32 years. “He cared deeply about veterans. He would come to the hospital for a veterans service meeting and stay there for two hours afterward just going around talking to people. ‘Hey, are they treating you right? Anything I can do?’ It was pretty cool.” Although Teresa and Peterson never married, her son Jed Burks considered him his stepfather. Jed’s children called Peterson “Papa Pat.”
Now, the coin is in the hands of its latest recipient, Air Force officer Dave Shonegal.
Peterson’s devotion to loved ones was rivaled only by his commitment to fellow vets.
Rauch returned the coin to Peterson in 2017. The coin’s owner passed away the following year. Peterson was 70 when he died from a brain hemorrhage in December. Rauch came to pay his respects. At the reception following the funeral at Holy Name Church, he said, “It got back to its rightful owner in time, and that’s what’s important.”
“He would go to the end of the world to especially help another military member,” Jed says. “If he couldn’t help you, he knew enough people to direct you to whatever you needed. It didn’t matter.”
Rauch also recounted his part in the coin story. He was on leave between tours when, by chance, he and his mates ended up at Nifty Bar on the Radial Highway. The neighborhood watering hole was such a regular hangout for Peterson that a brass plate with his name engraved in it is screwed into the bar at his traditional spot.
Peterson proudly wore his patriotism— bedecking himself and car with American flag symbols. His father Bernie Peterson was a wounded World War II veteran. “You knew from way down the road that Pat was coming your way,” recalls Jed, whose oldest daughter may be entering the military in a year. Peterson’s goodwill went beyond vets. MAY 2019 • 60PLUS
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her desire to continue the tradition in his memory. A nephew, Eric Peterson, knew a friend, Dave Shonegal, who was set to leave for Afghanistan in March on his sixth deployment. The nephew connected Shonegal with Teresa. “She asked me if I wanted to keep on the tradition,” Shonegal says, “and I told her, ‘I’m honored to even be asked to do something like this. I’ll gladly accept this, take it on my trip, and bring it back.’
It’s something I hope that, even after I give it back, continues for as long as it can until we’re done deploying or there’s just nobody left to give it to,” he says.
“He seemed to hone into people who needed help,” Teresa says. “If he knew of someone having trouble paying their utilities, he would give them some money. If somebody asked him for two dollars, he’d give them two dollars even it was his last two dollars. He was very generous.” When it came to vets, no request was too much. “He made sure, if anybody had surplus medical equipment, he’d get it to the VA—wheelchairs, walkers, canes,” she says. Peterson and a fellow Marine veteran, Nick Sloan (who died in 2015), organized an annual Marine Corps birthday party at Nifty that packed the joint. The Nov. 10 bash celebrated the birth of the Marine Corps. The Coin’s Journey Continues The coin tradition was another aspect of Peterson’s giving. “I thought it was a huge rite of passage to send it off with somebody else and then to get it back,” Teresa says. “I thought it was beautiful. He didn’t brag about it or anything. If he heard about somebody going, he would approach them and ask, ‘Can I give this to you as long as you bring it back?’ He felt like it was a good luck charm. But it wasn’t something he kept to himself—he shared it. It was part of his nature to care and share.” At his standing-room-only funeral Mass, Teresa shared the tale of handing the coin off to those bound for overseas duty and // 76 //
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Shonegal is the coin’s seventh recipient in a tradition now spanning multiple generations, different military branches, and various theaters of war. Teresa entrusted it to Shonegal on Feb. 16 at a going-away party at American Legion Post 374 in Millard. The legacy he inherited is not lost on him. “We’re talking 50 years. I don’t think I’ve heard of anything like this that longstanding, especially getting passed onto strangers,” he says. “It’s kind of crazy, but at the same time really cool. A responsibility comes with it. It’s now my responsibility to carry on this tradition. There’s a little nervousness about that. I don’t want to be the one that loses it after all these years.” Shonegal says the legacy will continue after his return from deployment. “It’s something I hope that, even after I give it back, continues for as long as it can—until we’re done deploying or there’s just nobody left to give it to,” he says. “It’s a really neat story and something I really feel needs to be shared as much as possible.”
Jed learned about the coin in the wake of Peterson’s death, and it only confirmed what he already knew about his stepfather. “Learning about the coin was awesome,” he says, “but it didn’t change anything for me because that was him. Not one part of the story of the coin surprised me because he always went above and beyond the call of duty to pay it forward to military members. “For me, it embodied what Pat was about— taking care of people. That good luck coin got him through Vietnam, and that’s why he passed it on—to take care of others. For me, it showed that even when you’re done [serving], you’re not done. You still take care of your brothers and sisters in the military. It’s a family.” Inspired by Peterson’s example, Jed began practicing mindfulness. “I’ve changed a lot of things about myself as far as showing more gratitude, telling people I’m proud of them, thanking them for being part of my life—things that Pat did and that I didn’t tell him enough,” Jed says. He’s also taken a cue from Peterson’s charity. “There have been multiple times when I thought, I wish I could help, but I can only do this,’” he says. “Well, why not only just do that? Maybe that’s more than enough. To me, it might be small, but to somebody else it might be huge.”
Teresa agrees.
Meanwhile, Teresa is keeping Peterson’s legacy and wishes alive through the coin. After traveling around the world multiple times, surviving dangerous treks, and escaping so many life-and-death firefights, she says there is still plenty of life left in this memento from the Vietnam War.
“I feel honored, absolutely honored,” she says, “and very, very proud. Pat would be proud.”
“It was very important to him to keep it going, so I’m not going to let it go,” Teresa says.
She says it was important for her to convey to Shonegal what kind of man Peterson was “because he’s carrying a piece of Pat with him.”
She suspects many of us carry a protective token.
“I told him, ‘I want you to know who you’re carrying,’” she says. The Legacy of a Lucky Coin Shonegal is sure he and Peterson would have made fast friends. “He was for the vets, and I can always stand with a guy like that,” Shonegal says. “That’s really where I feel like I’m heading. When I hang up the uniform, my next purpose is to help veterans in many of their situations.”
“Maybe you don’t know what your good luck charm is,” she says. “If you do, hold that piece dear and share it with others.” An internment for Pat Peterson is pending at Omaha National Cemetery. The date was not confirmed when this edition of Omaha Magazine went to press.
THE COIN GOT PETERSON SAFELY HOME IN 1970. HE PUNCHED A HOLE IN IT AND WORE IT ON HIS KEYCHAIN. HE THREW HIMSELF INTO VETERANS AFFAIRS. TWO DECADES ELAPSED BEFORE HE PASSED THE COIN TO ANOTHER SERVICEMAN GOING OFF TO FIGHT IN THE GULF WAR.
Dave Shonegal, the current keeper of the lucky coin
HEALTH // STORY BY ANTHONY FLOTT // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY
Staying a Step Ahead of Cancer Suzanne Kossow’s World Travels
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Suzanne and Bob Kossow // 80 //
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// HEALTH //
TALK WITH SUZANNE KOSSOW,
and a quote from the film Shawshank Redemption comes to mind: “Get busy living or get busy dying.” Unfortunately, we all face the same conclusion at the end of our days. The difference is how we spend our time between now and then. Despite Kossow’s decade-long battle against breast cancer, despite twice losing all her hair, despite being told, “You really don’t have a lot of time left here,” she is busy living— and traveling. She’s been to 50 or so countries, and she is continuing to cross new destinations off her bucket list. “When I travel, it’s just a wonderful escape,” Kossow says. “We’re on a routine: up at 8 in the morning and getting on a tour. I don’t have time to think about anything but, ‘What are we going to do that day?’” She’s had plenty on her mind since 2010 when she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. She went through treatment and fought it off. She saw it as “a bump in the road.” She and her husband, Bob, retired and started “making up for lost time” by traveling. One of the first excursions for the wine-loving couple was a 2012 trip to Southern Italy. Then to Peru and the Amazon. She kept cancer at bay. Her tumor markers and regular scans kept coming back clean. The Kossows visited Scotland, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Russia, and elsewhere. In 2016, though, her numbers rose. Cancer spread beyond her breasts to lymph nodes. The diagnosis shifted to stage 4, or metastatic breast cancer. There’s no cure—only medicines to slow its growth. “It just devastated me,” Kossow says. “I thought I was done with it.”
“When I travel, it’s just a wonderful escape,” Kossow says. “We’re on a routine: up at 8 in the morning and getting on a tour. I don’t have time to think about anything but, ‘What are we going to do that day?’”
“So we kept traveling,” she says. To the Bahamas, Ecuador, the Galápagos Islands, and throughout Eastern Europe. A new medicine helped for more than a year. The Kossows saw Cuba, Belgium, Madagascar, and more. Bad news came again at the end of 2017 when doctors discovered cancer had spread to her liver. She switched to another chemo med and, Kossow says, “Within 12 days, I was bald.” “Mentally, it’s very hard,” she says. “Numbers are going up and you’re going, ‘How much time do I have?’” Still, she traveled. To New Zealand, Israel, Ireland, Morocco. In July 2018, she began taking another new medication, the last oral chemo drug she can take, her physician said. The side effects were few. After about a month, her numbers “started going down dramatically.” “My numbers are good,” she says after returning home to Council Bluffs from Hawaii. When home, Kossow attends a weekly support group for women with metastatic breast cancer. She takes part in yoga classes for cancer patients. She regularly attends a wine club and is grateful she can taste again. Travel, of course, remains on the horizon. Greece in May, then Portugal and Canada. In October, a three-week around-the-world tour with stops to see the pyramids in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Wall in China, and to Cambodia, Myanmar, Oman… She is busy traveling—and living.
The news came as she was preparing for a trip to Iceland. Her physician—“a very positive doctor,” Kossow says—told her not to cancel the trip.
MAY 2019 • 60PLUS
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NOSTALGIA // STORY BY ROBERT FRAASS // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN & PROVIDED // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY
l a t n e n i t n o c h s g n u a o r r T h A t 6 y e e n t r u u o J o n U . S . R Omaha’s s o r e b e m e T i mRoger Bratt ReeHmistoric Highway h t n o e c Pla
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The story of Route 6 in Omaha is part of the story of Omaha itself.
D
ECADES BEFORE the Interstate Highway
System reshaped travel, commerce, and communities, the first intercontinental highway emerged in pre-World War I America. The oldest, longest, and highest of these transcontinental routes is U.S. Route 6. Midway between the highway’s coastal endpoints in California and Massachusetts, Route 6 defined many of Omaha’s most important traffic corridors. The route— known by different names depending on the era, locale, and new construction—was dedicated to American Civil War veterans, and it carries the title “Grand Army of the Republic Highway.” Today, the highway stretches (sometimes erratically) 3,652 miles from Long Beach to Provincetown across 14 states.
Today, Omahans think of a highway named 6 as Dodge Street—but that came half a century later. The original Route 6 dates back to 1911. The story of Route 6 in Omaha is part of the story of Omaha itself. And Roger Bratt wants to tell you all about it. Bratt, a resident of Lousiville, Nebraska, has turned his passion for history into a passion for telling the story of Route 6. He is vice president of the U.S. Route 6 Tourist Association and interim executive director of the association’s Nebraska operations. The group holds events to rekindle interest in the route’s history and drive tourism and economic development for towns along its path. “When I traveled all over the country for work, I’d take these old [Route 6] stretches to explore,” the retired Bratt explains. “I have driven on almost every mile of Route 6—not all at once, but in bits and pieces. I found it interesting because I used to ride it. This was a connection back to Nebraska for me.” // 84 //
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As a young boy in the ’50s, Bratt would ride shotgun with his father, Peter, who ran a small trucking business out of Bennett, near Lincoln. “I was a little kid at the time, so I would get my homework done and ride along with Dad,” Bratt recalls. “I loved that!” Peter and his drivers would pick up livestock from area farmers and head up Route 6 through Ashland and Gretna, hooking up to Q Street at 84th and then eastward on L Street to the stockyards. After delivering the cattle, drivers would head to the truck washes behind Johnny’s Café, which stayed open until 1 in the morning so drivers and stockyard workers could eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Then it was off to nearby Sutherland Lumber, where Roger would sleep in his father’s cab until lumberyard workers banged on the door, their signal the truck had been loaded with deliveries for customers along Route 6 on their way home. Today, Omahans think of a highway named 6 as Dodge Street—but that came half a century later. The original Route 6 dates back to 1911. From east to west, the original path of Route 6 entered the Omaha area from the southwest, going from 144th Street to Millard Avenue to 132nd and then onto Center Street (then known as Lincoln Avenue), passing cultural icons such as Aksarben and Petrow’s Restaurant before wrapping around Hanscom Park along Park Avenue up to Farnam Street past the Colonial and Blackstone hotels. Another jog onto Douglas Street saw Route 6 head into Iowa over the bridge built for the electric railcars that stretched the length of Broadway in Council Bluffs. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration built the Saddle Creek Underpass, and the path of Route 6 shifted onto Saddle Creek Road (named after the former creek buried underneath) before connecting with Farnam Street. Referring to the historic Route 6 today can be confusing to many Omaha residents because Dodge Street is currently the official Route 6. Bratt says it was rerouted to Dodge Street in the early 1960s after the demolition of the Aksarben Bridge and construction of Interstate 480. Further complicating the naming rights, Dodge Street was also the Lincoln Highway and other numbered highways in its lifetime.
The former path of Route 6 has mostly vanished under modern streets. But a rare brick portion of the old highway remains within Omaha city limits. Bratt says residents south of 96th and Center streets worked with the City of Omaha to preserve a four-block section of the highway’s brick pavers in the mid-20th century. This vestigial section is called Frontage Road and runs parallel to Center Street from Oakdale Elementary School. “I was scared to death when I saw it all torn up when they were renovating the school,” Bratt says. “But [the remaining road] looks beautiful now.” In Nebraska, the original dirt highway sprung up in noncontiguous locations—in western Nebraska in 1911, in the Ashland area during the same period, and in Lincoln (today’s Cornhusker Highway) in the ’20s. Route 6 wasn’t known as Route 6 until the 1930s, often referred to as the OLD Highway (Omaha-Lincoln-Denver) in its early days. In his personal collection of Route 6 photos and maps, Bratt keeps some photographic gems from Ashland. There’s an image of a 1911 or 1912 parade promoting the new route between Omaha and Denver (and promoting automobiles alongside horses and buggies), and another photo of men and their cars outside Ashland on one of the “cruises” that sprouted with the route. Along the highway is a signpost: “OLD—The Best Dirt Road in the U.S.” Today, the association works to preserve this heritage while promoting tourism and attracting new residents to small towns along the highway. Bratt is fond of his work in Nebraska, where Route 6 continues to course through southern Nebraska from Lincoln into small towns (including Friend, Hastings, Minden, McCook, etc.) and onward into Colorado. Bratt has traveled to make presentations in these towns and works with association members—many from abroad—who want to drive the route and explore communities and countryside along the way. Some tourists, Bratt says, express interest in moving to their favorite towns. “They are interested in the old routes because the transcontinental route was what built America,” Bratt says. Visit route6tour.com for more information.
ACTIVE LIVING // STORY BY JESSICA WADE // PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL SITZMANN // DESIGN BY DEREK JOY
B
EA SIDES HAS been running for more than half her life, but joy is not the word she would use to describe the feeling that running evokes. “It’s not so much joy, it’s a sense of accomplishment,” Sides says. “I know people who have finished their first ever event and end up crying, and I understand that emotion because it’s something that you didn’t think six months or a year ago that you could accomplish.” The 67-year-old says her running journey began a little over 35 years ago when her father had a heart attack and was rushed to Omaha by helicopter air ambulance from the Columbus area. “I had relatives staying with me so I couldn’t get up and do my aerobics inside the house. I started getting up and running, and that’s how my running got started,” Sides says. “I just fell in love with it and have been doing it ever since.” Sides’ running has led her to compete in marathons and half marathons across the United States, from Nashville to Syracuse. She ran the Boston Marathon—twice. Her most rewarding running experience isn’t a specific race, however. That honor goes to her involvement with establishing Step into Running, a group training program for women and girls through the Omaha Running Club. // 86 //
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“[Step into Running] was a way of teaching women or showing women the process of running and how to get into it if they were interested,” she says. “It was giving back to the community, and the community gave back to me through my running.” Step into Running is an 11-week program that begins every spring. Participants meet every Tuesday for a session lasting 45 minutes to an hour. Sides says she’s seen anywhere from 50 to 75 women and girls start the program, and roughly 20 to 30 percent have finished the program. “We just want them to enjoy what they’re doing, and meeting other women has also been big,” she says. “There’s been some of the women who have met and started friendships within the Step into Running program, and some of them 15 years later are still friends.” Sides says the sense of community Step into Running provides is one of the most important factors for both veteran runners and beginners. “If you have somebody who’s going to be waiting for you, you’re more committed to going and doing something,” Sides says. “Having that other person makes you accountable.”
There are no qualifications to join the Step into Running program. There is a fee of $5 for current Omaha Running Club Members and a cost of $25 for non-members, which includes an Omaha Running Club membership. The women who join the program are welcome to run in any event they wish to. There is also the Go Girl Run 5K every Labor Day. “Go Girl Run is kind of the climax to the running program,” Sides says. “Any and all women and girls in Omaha can participate.” Sides encourages women and girls of all ages to take up running, and she offers this advice to beginners, especially beginners over 60: “I’d advise them to get a good pair of shoes; they don’t have to be expensive shoes, just good shoes. And to take it easy, find a training plan that works for them. The most important part is finding others that are interested in it as well. It’s the community that gets you out there and keeps you going.” Visit omaharun.org/step-into-running for more information.
“[Step into Running] was a way of teaching women or showing women the process of running and how to get into it if they were interested,” sides says. “It was giving back to the community, and the community gave back to me through my running.”
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