By Curt Hendel
Veteran’s Writer
Just over five years ago, while conducting Honor Guard detail at a local veteran’s funeral, I had an idea and I knew I had to act on it. So many members of our community have served their country early in life, but as they grew older, this service had either been forgotten or was not highlighted. I felt that each and every veteran deserved to be recognized, even in death. I went to Kathy Burzlaff at the Nobles County Review, and pitched my idea to her, to write a military style obituary when a veteran passed away so that the people of our communities could learn and understand how the veteran had served their country.
Kathy took the idea to the boss and explained it to him. Jerry batted it around a bit, and wondered if these military profiles could be done on any veteran, if it could fill a page and if it could be done every month. When Kathy talked to me about it I was certainly enthused, but also concerned. Could we pull this off? This was April of 2014.
We needed a format. We decided to run six profiles and a military related article (that I would write) each month. We would include a military photograph with the profile if they were available. We developed a form that people could easily fill out to get this information to me. The last member to join the team was Kristine Kern at the Review office, who was tasked with putting up with me on this project and designing each months page. The team was complete.
Initially, we decided that we would try to run the Veteran’s Honor Page for one year. That would mean that we would need at least 72 area veterans to spotlight. We all worked to promote this project. Our greatest obstacle was the veteran that “did not want to brag”. From the beginning, this project was never meant to brag or be arrogant in any way; it was meant to spotlight the service of the veterans of Western Nobles County.
So this was the project; I did the writing, Kristine put the page together while assembling photographs and covering so many other details, and Kathy worked on advertising and promotion.
We launched the first page in the paper just before Memorial Day, 2014 – the perfect time. As the first few months showed our communities just what we had in mind, profiles started to come in, members of the community embraced the page, and a year passed quickly. We coordinated page schedules and promotion of the page while working hard to get more profiles in to keep the ball moving. We decided to run this page until we could get no more profiles, then just stop the project and walk away. What ever we got out of the run, we would be happy for that.
We began working to put families together on the pages. I think we felt that this was one of the best improvements we made to our format. Now we could see the service of groups of brothers or relatives across the decades. One family filled over two pages and included veterans from the Civil War to active duty personnel today.
I think it was around the 2½-year point when we envisioned a next level. As we talked, we could sense that something big was happening. This project had grown more than we expected and was resonating with the community. Kristine, Kathy and I had invested heavily in thirty of these pages, over 180 local veterans had already been profiled and more were coming in. So what could the next level be?
It would take another pitch to Jerry, whose enthusiasm during this entire project was admirable, for the next phase to get approval. This was when the idea of the book came to be a reality. Whenever this project ran out of steam all of the profiles would be assembled in to one book, complete with the pictures we had collected.
The final push started last summer. We had missed a month or two of the regular pages, as the profiles had dried up. Argonne Post 32 would be celebrating its centennial during the summer of 2019, so we decided there was no better time for the book to come out. We had no idea that, even with a well publicized push, that so many more profiles would come in. We literally have over two years of pages to run from all of the profiles that I have written since the beginning of this year. If you or a family member is one of these profiles stay tuned, we will run each and every profile until the file is empty!
It was a short couple of weeks ago when this book went to print. I handed my information off to Kristine over the course of the last several months. She assembled it and shipped it to the Fulda office and from there it was off to the printer. We have seen the proof and it is pretty impressive.
The book will be available at the community happy hour from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m., July 20th, in the tent behind Keith’s Grocery in Adrian. It will also be available at the Review office for one hour following the parade and will continue to be on sale through Legion members and at the Review office after the celebration.
At the end of the day, this book represents many of the veterans of the western half of Nobles County. We covered everyone from the Civil War to present, from those that volunteered to those who were drafted throughout the years-veterans who fought across the globe in defense of our freedom. Our veterans stood the line in war and peace, day and night, on the home front and in so many countries across the globe. These veterans are a part of the machine that continues to allow us to enjoy our every day lives and sleep safely at night. They have earned their place in this book!
This project has been a gift to those of us that assembled it. We are honored to have been trusted with family history and details of military service. There were times when it tested our patience and stretched our nerves to the breaking point. In the last five months I have written well over 200 profiles and the book contains just over a total of 500 veterans from our communities.
This book was more than a project to us; it was a mission. It was more than pictures, words, and paper; it was an actual labor of love. Love of our country and of those that have served her, love of our communities and love of all of the families left behind while a loved one wears the uniform of our armed forces.
From all of us involved, we hope that you see in this book what we do. This is a legacy piece, a legacy of service and sacrifice. We hope you find pride in the service of our citizens and all that they accomplished.
We want to thank all that served, whether you participated in the project or not. Thank you for every safe night and opportunity and freedom that we enjoy.
Thank You!
