February 2020
Retired judge served in two branches of military Keith Kraft is one of several U.S. Armed Forces veterans living at Heritage Manor senior apartments in Park Rapids. The 17-year-old Kraft was sworn into the U.S. Marine Corps on Feb. 13, 1945. “I don’t know why I wound up in the Marine Corps,” he said, “except that I remember the day that they bombed Pearl Harbor. I was really mad at the Japanese.” He laughed, adding, “Sneaky, little buggers!” The Iowa native was determined to do something about it, but World War II ended before he could get out of the country. After boot camp at Parris Island in Port Royal, S.C., Kraft found himself at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, Calif. There he and his platoon from Parris Island received their orders. Everyone in the platoon was assigned to a post-war, peace-keeping mission in China, where the government and communists were shooting at each other. Everyone, but Kraft. “Everybody in my platoon got captured by the communists and locked up for a couple of weeks,” he
to play football,” he said. When he asked his superiors what would happen if he went to Annapolis and could no longer play football, they said, “You’ve got four years in the Navy.” “I said, ‘No, thank you. I don’t want to go to Annapolis with my leg the way it is,’” said Kraft. So, instead of going into the Navy, he took his discharge from the Marines at the rank of private 1st In this undated photo, Margaret and Keith Kraft are attending an event together with Keith in his Marine Corps League uni- class. form. (Submitted photo)
From laborer to judge
I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed every day. KEITH KRAFT
Keith Kraft of Park Rapids mustered out of the U.S. Marines as a private first class. By the time he retired from the National Guard, he was a major. (Robin Fish/Enterprise) said. “Then, they turned them loose. Someplace, there’s a Life magazine that shows all of these guys on the front page, being held by the Chinese communists.” Meanwhile, he went on, “When they came to my
name, they said, ‘You’re going to Great Lakes Naval Training Center.’” Kraft asked why this was. The officers said because of his high school football record and his interest in math – “I took a calculus course” – they wanted him in Chicago. “That’s where I played football for Navy,” he said. Likely because of that same math-football combination, he was eventually offered a place at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. “I had a bad knee that I had to have a brace on
Kraft said he asked acquaintances in the Chicago Bears organization, “You want a crippled football player?” They offered him $1,200 a year. “It probably wasn’t too bad, back at that time. But I said, ‘No, I’m not going to do that.’” Instead of warming a bench at Soldier Field, the ex-Marine went home to Ankeny, Iowa and got a job as a construction worker. Because he needed a little extra money, he also signed up for the Iowa National Guard. “They pay every month. It wasn’t too bad,” he said. Also, just for signing up, “they immediately made me a sergeant.” One chilly, misty day in October, he was working at a construction site in
Des Moines when a worker fell off the scaffolding below him and was taken away by an ambulance. “I said to myself, ‘Do I want to do this for 40 years before I can retire?’ I said, ‘No, no.’ So, I went and found out about the G.I. Bill of Rights,” said Kraft. Also known as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, the 1944 federal law provided benefits to World War II veterans such as college tuition. Kraft went to Drake University in Des
Moines, graduating in 1950. He said he studied a “little bit of everything. I didn’t know where I was heading. I knew that I wanted to be a policeman. So, when I got out of Drake, another Drake graduate ran for clerk of court in Polk County. I went and talked to him, and he said, ‘Don’t do it.’ I said, ‘How’s come?’ He said, ‘Everybody in the sheriff’s office is on
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Inside this issue... 4 Savvy Senior: New tax form 5 Lost Italian: Continue postholiday detox 6 Growing Together: Rescuing trees and shrubs 7 Boomers on the Move: Healing power of pets
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By Robin Fish rfish@parkrapidsenterprise. com
