Local group shares stories of veterans' service
Nov. 26—NEW ALBANY — A Southern Indiana group is honoring veterans by sharing the stories behind photographs, letters and other memorabilia from those who served in various wars.
Every month, local residents come together for a group called the World War II Roundtable. Many of the participants are veterans of various conflicts themselves, and some have family members who are veterans.
On Friday, the group met at Grace Lutheran Church in New Albany for a "show and tell" event as they brought in military artifacts. Participants spoke about their own service, as well as the stories passed down from those they knew who served in the military.
Although most presentations were focused on World War II, Friday's event also featured several Vietnam veterans who discussed their experiences.
Sellersburg resident Mike Stock, a Vietnam veteran, is a longtime member of the group.
"It's an unofficial group — we don't have a membership, we don't have dues," he said. "It's just people that are interested in World War II history. Mostly we talk about World War II history, sometimes other wars."
Sellersburg resident John Burke told the story of his grandfather, Herbert Burke, who served in the U.S. Army during World War II. In 1939, his grandfather was working in a coal mine in Jenkins County, Kentucky, and a recruiter from the U.S. Army came to town.
"The army recruiter came to them and basically explained that they would have a better chance of surviving with bullets flying over their heads than working in a coal mine in the '30s," Burke said.
His grandfather joined the 21st Engineer Aviation Regiment, and he was part of a secret mission in 1941 to build an air force base in Greenland.
At Friday's meeting, Burke brought a Christmas menu from the transport ship that took his grandfather's unit to Greenland. The is one of his most prized possessions, Burke said.
The paper features a crest on the back with the image of a seal and the words "expect anything." He got the same crest tattooed on his chest in remembrance of his grandfather, he said.
His grandfather crossed into Normandy the day after the D-Day landing, and he went all the way to Adolf Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat in Berchtesgaden.
Burke said it is meaningful to know he has this family connection to "real-life heroes."
Burke's mother, Mary Burke, also presented at Friday's meeting. She read from letters to family written by her mother, Amy Lou Gilmore, who was a nurse with the U.S. Army during World War II.
One of the letters was written while her mother was in Germany on May 17, 1945, followed Gen. George S. Patton through Europe and served during the Battle of the Bulge.
Gilmore described her experience during the V.E. Day celebrations in Paris.
"Another nurse and I flew 440 miles to Paris from Germany," Gilmore wrote. "It was just pure luck we got our three-day pass at that time. We flew that distance in three hours time. The city was the craziest, happiest crowd I had ever seen."
"They turned their lights and water fountains on for the first time since 1940. This other nurse met her husband for a second honeymoon. We went to nightclubs, to the Follies and did all the things you ever wanted or dreamed of doing in Paris."
Gilmore wrote that they had to hitch rides on a couple of planes to return to their outfit after the celebration in Paris. Another letter dated Aug. 14, 1945 details the atmosphere in France with the impending end to the war, saying she was hoping to be home by Christmas or earlier. She ends the letter with these words:
"Say a prayer for wars to end forever."
Jeffersonville resident Lee Ewing, a Vietnam veteran, was a guest at Friday's meeting. He brought his two Purple Hearts to the event and provided an account of the situations that led to the honors.
His second Purple Heart was the one he feels he truly earned. He was serving in the U.S. Marines during the Tet Offensive, and he was shot three times while retrieving the body of his friend who had died in combat. He was hospitalized for months before receiving a medical discharge.
Ewing now is the director of service for the Kentucky chapter of Disabled American Veterans, and he discussed his experience volunteering to help fellow veterans, including those from World War II.
"They refer to World War II as the greatest war, and in what I've chosen to do in the DAV, I've dealt with a lot of World War II veterans, and they are getting very, very scarce," he said.
William C. Dellinger brought books focused on World War II history and pointed out a picture of a local man featured in a famous photo of Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking to paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division before D-Day.
Howard Barr, a World War II Army veteran from Clarksville who died in 2020, wasn't a paratrooper, but he was one of the men featured in the photograph, according to Charlie Arrington, one of the participants in the roundtable group.
Arrington relayed a story he had learned from Barr about the photo.
"Howard was asked to take a Jeep and go to the post office or something or another to pick up messages, and he did, and as he was coming back or going, he noticed this crowd standing around, and everyone seemed to be concentrating in one area, so he decided he'd go over and check what it was, and it turns out it was Eisenhower meeting with the paratroopers the day before the D-Day invasion," Arrington said.
So Barr joined the group and was featured in the photo.
"He ended up in this very famous picture of Gen. Eisenhower and the paratroopers," Arrington said. "If you notice, he was dressed a little different. He wasn't part of the paratrooper outfit. He was just in the right place at the right time."
Arrington said he loves learning about World War II history, particularly the local residents involved in the conflict.
"There's a lot of people who did some interesting things in World War II that people don't even know about, and Howard was one of them," he said.
Stock shared the story behind the injury that led to his Purple Heart, and he showed a framed display featuring a bullet titled "A Bullet With My Name On It," which nearly hit him while he was serving in the Vietnam War.
He was a helicopter gunship pilot for the U.S. Navy in Vietnam, and during the Tet Offensive, he was in the Mekong Delta. He was nearly killed in early February 1968 as a bullet just missed his head.
"So we were on a rocket run in this town with all kinds of the enemy everywhere, and I'm firing my machineguns down in front of us, and I had a premonition that I am going to get hit," he said. "It was unbelievable. And not more than a second or two after I had that thought, a bullet came in the front of the windshield, and it went by my head by five inches — five inches from hitting me smack in the head."
Stock was injured from shrapnel in his neck and his arm, which earned him an "easy Purple Heart."
"I got a Purple Heart — I always thought I didn't deserve it," he said. "It was a close one. I say that the bullet had my first name on it but didn't have the last name. I'm fortunate."
