Seniors welcome home their veterans
Seniors welcome home their veterans
By ALLAN TINKER
The McClusky Senior Citizens welcomed home three of their own from the Sept. 10 Roughrider Honor Flight last Thursday, Dept. 16. It was a time for hugs of support and comfort; tears of relief and joy, and a time to let go of the stress and distress only wartime and military service can inflict. It was a rousing success in all venues.
Three veterans, one woman and two men, offered their unique perspectives on their lives, their service to their country, and their feelings on reuniting with others who had also served during World War II, all members of Tom Brokaw’s defined “Greatest generation.”
The three veterans who had returned from the Washington trip were Lucille Bergstrazer, Harold Hepper, and Marvin Kissee. They represented service in three areas of the military, medical, communications, and infantry and two branches of the service, navy and army. Hepper was drafted and Bergstrazer and Kissee enlisted.
These veterans, and those of like age who gathered around them, remembered the war, some more distinctly than others. Those who had been old enough to be drafted or enlist recalled the actual military duties and experiences; those who had been too young, or had been left at home to work or raise families and those who had seen sons and daughters return home injured in spirit if not physically all recalled the impact of the war in their own way.
