Stories of Honor 2022

Thank you for your service

We, the staff at the Daily Journal, are pleased to honor our military and our veterans with our second edition of Stories of Honor.

Those included in our Stories of Honor in 2022 are Darby Downey, Ryan Klaus, Melvin Brinkley, Don Barzowski, James Trotter, Mike Schoelhamer, Jerry Rawlins, Joe Holloway Jr., Ernie Cook, Pattie Smith, Vickey Bonney, and Gary Tune.

In our community, veterans are our friends, our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons.

Daily Journal Sales Manager Michelle Menley said, “We’re blessed to live in a country where every day we wake up and are free to live that day however choose … we get to encourage our children to pursue their dreams … no matter what those dreams are.

“Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude.”

Harry S. Truman, President of the United States

“We have these freedoms because of the sacrifice of our veterans.”

Menley said her grandfather, father, and big brother are all combat veterans.

Daily Journal Editor Teresa Ressel Inserra appreciates everyone who has served the nation.

“My son Joseph and daughter-in-law Angel are serving in the military,” she said.

President Harry S Truman said, “Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude.”

Many in our community feel the same way.

They support our veterans. They honor our veterans. It can be as simple as a “thank you for your service.” Or it can be a gesture of a free coffee or a haircut.

In the area, we see groups like Camp Hope and Camp Valor Outdoors who help veterans facing challenges after service.

Camp Hope, located outside Farmington in southern St. Francois County, is a retreat for military veterans wounded in the War on Terror. Veteran Mike White and his wife Galia, created Camp Hope as a tribute to their son Christopher, who was killed fighting for our country in Iraq.

“Warriors are never alone on the battlefield and shouldn’t be alone when they come back home. Healing in the great outdoors with Camp Valor Outdoors and reconnecting with fellow warriors is therapeutic and essential to healing.”

The mission of Camp Hope is to honor the fallen by helping the wounded. They offer all expenses-paid adventures and comradery for our service men and women who gave selflessly for our freedoms.

Camp Hope offers beautiful rolling hills and hardwood ridges, perfect for hiking, four-wheeling, hunting, fishing, and exploring. Visits by honored guests often center on deer and turkey seasons. They offer first-rate facilities for combat-wounded veterans -- in ADA-approved, handicapped accessible cabins.

Camp Valor Outdoors is another non-profit organization dedicated to military veterans. They recognize and honor ill, injured, and wounded disabled veterans and their families through adaptive and competitive activities such as guided fishing, hunting, shooting, archery, 4-wheeling, or just simply relaxing around the campfire.

“Warriors are never alone on the battlefield and shouldn’t be alone when they come back home. Healing in the great outdoors with Camp Valor Outdoors and reconnecting with fellow warriors is therapeutic and essential to healing.”

There are the Patriot Guard Riders. They were founded in 2005 to shield families of fallen heroes from those that would disrupt the services of their loved ones. The Patriot Guard Riders has grown to include thousands of members across all 50 states in the US. They are a 100% volunteer 501(c)(3) organization.

They also honor first responders, as well as veterans. Additionally they have an active Help On The Homefront (HOTH) program, which provides assistance to veterans and their families.

Then there is the AMVETS Riders who are a “dedicated and patriotic group of motorcycle riders who hold true to an unwavering respect for our Nation, our Flag, and our Military...past, present, and future. We are committed to the freedom of this Nation, to provide community service and fellowship, and to preserve and support the aims and goals of the AMVETS Organization.”

These are just a few of the organizations in and around the community geared to helping veterans.

Thank you for your service.

Nominate a local veteran for our 2023 Stories of Honor by emailing tressel@dailyjournalonline.com

Darby Ross Downey

Ryan Klaus

Pattie Smith

James Trotter

Ernie Cook

Jerry Rawlins

Joe Holloway

Melvin Lee Brinkley

Don Barzowski

Vickey Bonney

Gary Tune

Mike Schoelhamer

HONOR & SACRIFICE

PAM CLIFTON Contributing Writer

Some of the most powerful stories come from those who have served in the armed forces. They’ve shown allegiance, heroism and determination.

This first story recognizes a very special person who served in the U.S. Army.

Park Hills resident Darby Ross Downey, 104, tried to join the U.S. Army when World War II broke out. But he was turned down in December 1941 because he is blind in his right eye.

So, he married his sweetheart, Yvette Bullock, on Mother’s Day, May 10, 1942. He was called into the service for light duty just three months later on Sept. 7, 1942, at age 24.

Downey was stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison, just northeast of Indianapolis. He served in the Ordnance Corps, whose mission was to procure, maintain and issue Army combat units with weapons and ammunition, vehicles, equipment, and more.

Downey’s rank was Technician fifth grade, or T/5. (This rank was used from 1942 to 1948 and recognized enlisted soldiers with special technical skills but who were not trained as combat leaders.)

While stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Downey worked at the reception center which is where the newly enlisted soldiers underwent their health assessment.

“I was dedicated to take new recruits through all of the things they had to do, including getting their clothes, haircuts and shots,” said Downey. “Then after that, they were graded and taken care of. A lot of times I was sent with a group of them to their future camp.”

Downey made trips to Texas, Florida and California. He traveled with the new recruits, left them at their new base, and traveled back to Fort Benjamin Harrison where he met a new group.

He spent two years in Indiana before being sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., where he went through more training. He spent about six months in Missouri.

“Then I was attached to a reception company,” said Downey. “I was put out to work doing different things. One thing was they gave me about eight German POWs. One of

them could speak English. So, my group did some work around the camp. We started out by laying these flat rocks in a ditch to keep it from washing.”

Next, Downey was sent to Fort Jackson, S.C. While stationed there, his wife Yvette gave birth to their first child, Jeannie, in Illinois. Later, Yvette and Jeannie traveled by train to South Carolina so Downey could meet his newborn daughter.

“The Army just passed me around and finally attached me to this Ordnance Company,” he said.

He was sent to the state of Washington where he was stationed for about two weeks. Then the soldiers were sent on a ship in the Pacific Ocean.

“We stopped at Hawaii on our way to Japan,” Downey said. “We stopped at another island before we got to where we were going just south of Japan.”

Once they arrived at their destination, Downey completed a variety of jobs including driving a truck and pulling a trailer to obtain water from the water station for soldiers to bathe. He retrieved supplies and more.

“The island I was on had an airbase,” he said.

He recalled a big storm in the Pacific while he was stationed on the island. The storm was so strong that it stopped all shipments for about four weeks.

“We didn’t get any food, so we ate a lot of one thing,” he said. “We were getting low on food when finally about the middle of it we got a shipment of pork chops and that’s what we had for breakfast, dinner and supper.”

Downey left the Pacific in January 1945 to return to Washington. Then he was sent briefly to Indiana and was discharged from there.

“They gave us a big speech that they’d like for us to join up again,” he said, “but I wasn’t ready for that.”

He was discharged from the U.S. Army in January 1946 after nearly four years of service. He was beyond thrilled to be heading home. When he left Camp Atterbury in Indiana, he was given a bus ticket to St. Louis. Once he arrived in St. Louis, he had no way to get home. Fortunately, one of his fellow soldier’s parents was picking him up so they

offered Downey a ride into Illinois.

“That was a ride,” he said. “During the trip, the lights went out on the car, but they finally came back on.”

From there, he hitchhiked and walked the rest of the way to his wife’s family’s home of Charles and Ella Bullock in Chester.

“I knocked on the door and my family wanted to know who was at the door,” he said. “I just said who I was and of course they were all in bed. When we got settled down a little bit and went to bed, Jeannie got in bed in between us. She didn’t really know who I was because she was only 1.”

This homecoming was unexpected for Downey’s family because they had not received the telegram that he’d sent stating he had been discharged and was on his way home.

The next day, the family cooked a big meal and celebrated Downey’s unexpected yet joyous and safe return home.

in World War II

Downey’s parents Alden and Edna had two other sons, Arthur Glenn and Benjamin David. All three brothers joined the military, with Darby in the Army and Arthur and Benjamin in the Navy.

“My parents had three sons and all three went to war,” said Downey. “I was the oldest. Art went to the Pacific, and Ben was stationed in San Francisco to help keep the subs [submarines] out.”

Although Downey wasn’t directly involved in combat, he did experience a great loss. His best friend was killed in action in Germany.

After Downey returned home from the service, he was happy to return to his family.

“After I got back from the service and got back to my wife and baby, everything else just washed away,” he said.

The Downey’s son Ross was born in 1952. After his service in the military, Downey worked as a surveyor for about five years with an oil exploration crew and then with another company for about 10 years.

The family moved to Missouri when Downey got a job with the state’s new interstate projects started.

“We moved to Missouri about two weeks before Thanksgiving in 1961,” said Downey.

He went to work for the state highway department in Kirkwood and drove every day to work until he retired in 1983.

Darby’s daughter Jeannie was included in this interview. She expanded on some of Darby’s stories to include more specific details. At the conclusion of this interview, she said her father had told her earlier that morning that he “didn’t do anything important in the military.”

Jeannie said, “Dad said, ‘I wasn’t a hero.’ But I told him that what he did was important to get those soldiers transported from one base to another. Every job was important. They all worked together to get the jobs done.”

Even if Darby Downey doesn’t think he’s a hero, the fact is he made personal sacrifices. He risked his life to keep Americans safe. And with this story, we acknowledge his sacrifices and offer great respect and gratitude to him for his service.

Pam Clifton is a contributing writer for the Daily Journal.

Blind in his right eye, Downey, 104, served in different roles

PAM CLIFTON , DAILY JOURNAL

Darby Downey, 104, looks over memorabilia from his service during World War II.

Darby Downey served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946.

‘Part of my identity’

PAM CLIFTON Contributing Writer

Marines molded Klaus into the man he is today

The attacks on the nation on Sept. 11, 2001, deeply impacted Ryan Klaus. He had visited the twin towers two years before the attacks. When he saw the events unfold live on TV, that made him want to take action.

Klaus’s father, Nick, was a Marine. His grandfathers Vincent and Robert served in the U.S. Army, one in Korea and both in Vietnam. His sister Lisa served in the Army. Several uncles served in the Navy and Army. Four cousins served in the Army.

Before the Sept. 11 attacks, Klaus also wanted to be a Marine. The events of 9/11 solidified his decision to become a Marine.

Klaus has always been extremely competitive and strived to be the best, so the Marine Corps was the perfect fit for him.

He completed basic training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego in 2009. Although this training was tough, it also developed his character and helped him establish several relationships which he still has today.

After basic training, Klaus went to job training and then to his first duty station at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where he served for four years at 2nd Maintenance Battalion. In addition, he completed one tour of duty to Afghanistan.

When he returned, Klaus went to Champaign, Illinois, where

he served as a recruiter for three years. Then he traveled to Yakima, Washington, and served as the motor pool chief, licensing office and maintenance chief for 4th Tanks Battalion Bravo Co. for a little more than a year.

While in the service, Klaus trained to learn diesel mechanics. Although this was his primary duty, he was also a combat marksmanship coach.

After recruiting duty, he became a licensing officer and assisted several Marines with obtaining their licenses to drive military trucks and equipment.

“I volunteered for every class and educational opportunity while I was in the Marines,” he said, “and as a result, I was promoted ahead of most of my peers.”

He earned more than 60 college credits from his military schooling and learned how to do everything to a diesel truck, from changing oil and tires to completely tear ing down and rebuilding engines, transmissions and differentials, and everything else in between.

Klaus said there were a few meals he actually enjoyed while in the military. His favorite was the chili mac Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE).

“I would trade my snack bread and peanut butter for crackers and jalapeno cheese and would then mix it all together with Tabasco and that became my favorite meal while in training and in Afghanistan,” he said.

His least favorite meal was the veggie omelet MRE.

During his almost 10 years of military service, Klaus developed close relationships with six fellow Marines with whom he still maintains regular contact.

“My favorite memories of my service all revolve around my fellow Marines and the stuff we did together both on, but especially off, duty,” he said. “Those memories will be the ones I hold onto forever and the stories I tell the most.”

He said he spent more time with his fellow Marines than he did with his wife and kids at the time.

“We worked out together, went to class, fixed trucks, ate breakfast and lunch together, hung out at each other’s house after work and on weekends (families were involved if they had them), and on deployment and training we even slept together,” he said. “This is easily the hardest thing about leaving the military and what I miss the most.”

Klaus served in the Marines for nine years. He was medically retired from Yakima and returned to Missouri in 2018. He was ranked as staff sergeant when he retired from the military. He received awards for his service as a mechanic, recruiting duty and overseas deployment.

His most memorable military story occurred in Afghanistan when he experienced a small leak on a hydraulic trailer which he took another Marine to help him fix.

“I foolishly forgot to support the neck of the trailer when I went to remove the hydraulic hose, so the entire weight of the neck was on the

line he and I removed,” said Klaus. “The pressure forced the line off the fitting as we tried to loosen it, and the entire hydraulic cylinder – about 22 gallons of hydraulic oil – emptied out all over us and got into our ears, pockets, boots and literally every orifice of our uniform and bodies.”

Although the event was hilarious, it not only resulted in extensive work in cleaning up the mess but it also provided the next few weeks’ worth of jokes amongst their fellow Marines.

Klaus is grateful for the stability he has in his life now.

He said, “Knowing I get to come home and sleep in my bed every night, not having to worry about getting a call to leave my family again, but I will always miss the Marine Corps and will keep the values and traditions instilled in me, near and dear to my heart.”

Klaus said most people do not realize that serving in the military is not simply a four-year-long deployment. He lived a relatively “normal life” when not in training or on deployment. He arrived at work at 5:30 a.m. five days a week to complete physical training (PT). He ate breakfast and then worked on trucks from 7:30 a.m. to about 5 p.m. He went home after that to have dinner with his family and then enjoyed weekends with his family. They spent time on the beach and hung out with friends.

He said one common misconception about serving in the military is that personnel only perform

one job.

“I wore several different hats and had several different duties while in the military,” said Klaus.

“I learned things about working on vehicles, repairing and maintaining weapons, physical fitness, diet and nutrition, history, computer skills, math classes, public speaking, several things about being a leader, human resources, personal finance and taxes, even simple things like how to properly lace my shoes and put my belt on the right way.”

Klaus said there is no way he would be the man he is today – or would have had near the success he’s had – without his time in the Marines.

“Being a Marine has truly became part of my identity,” he said, “and I would encourage any American with a desire to serve and even an ounce of competitiveness to do at least one tour in the Marine Corps.”

He said, “It changed my life for the better, provided me with opportunities to be in the position I am in with my life now professionally, and enabled me to build relationships with the closest friends I’ve ever had.”

Klaus is a resident of Park Hills.

He owns Farmers Insurance, Ryan Klaus Agency, in Bonne Terre. He has one daughter and two sons. He enjoys hunting, fishing, off-roading and spending time outdoors with his kids.

Pam Clifton is a contributing writer for the Daily Journal

SUBMITTED

Ryan Klaus (center) and two fellow Marines paused to take a photo in May 2014 while they were on recruiting duty.

Brinkley's passion was to help others

PAM CLIFTON Contributing Writer

He was a devoted patriot, dearly loved his country and was always happy. In fact, Melvin “Mel” Lee Brinkley Jr.’s mother Lola Ruth nicknamed her son “Sonny” because he was such a happy baby.

Mel and his brother Michael and sister Joyce grew up in Piedmont and later moved to St. Francois County where Mel graduated from Farmington High School in 1987.

Mel proudly served his country twice, in the Marine Corps and in the Army National Guard. He had followed in his family’s footsteps by joining the military. His grandfather served in the U.S. Army, and an uncle who often told stories of how he lost his finger while in the military. Those stories fascinated Mel as a little kid, and he listened intently to them.

Mel served first in the Army National Guard. After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, he wanted to serve his country like so many other Americans. But the National Guard hadn’t been called, so Mel joined the Marine Corps. He was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California. He served overseas in Kenya and was part of Operation Desert Storm. While serving in Iraq, he was helping to transport U.S. military by plane who had been killed when he experienced a surprise attack.

While in the Marine Corps, Mel’s duty was logistics embarkation specialist. He also earned the rank of sergeant and numerous awards or citations including National Defense Service Medal, Overseas Service Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon, Army Reserve Achievement Medal, Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Good Conduct Medal, Southwest Asia Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Kuwaiti Liberation Medal, Sharp Shooter Expert and Rifle Expert Badge.

Mel had married before joining the Army National Guard. After serving overseas in the Marine Corps, he shifted his focus back to his family and they returned to Bonne Terre.

Mel and his wife later divorced.

He met Shirley Gaddy in October 2014. Shirley met Mel at a time in her life after she was also divorced but wasn’t looking for another relationship.

“But Mel was so funny,” she said, “and he quickly became a light in my life that I didn’t currently have in my life.

The couple met at a costume party. Mel was dressed as a biker and Shirley was dressed as Anna Nicole Smith.

“Mel came right up to me when he first saw me and I just laughed at him all night,” Shirley said.

The next day when the two saw each other in “real clothes,” Mel told Shirley, “You’re beautiful.”

The couple has not been apart since 2014. They married on Halloween in 2016.

They have been active in the St. Francois County Veterans of Foreign War Post 2426. In fact, Mel has held nearly every leadership position in the local organization, from commander to various other positions. He’s also held many leadership roles at the district level.

Mel was originally a member of the Bonne Terre VFW but later transferred his membership to the Desloge post.

He was one of eight charter members of the District 8 Riders.

The group was started around 2013 with Mel being the driving force behind it. The group raises money for multiple charities including the seven veterans’ homes in Missouri and Michigan’s National Home for Children.

Mel had served as statewide “east side” captain and local captain for District 8, which includes 16 VFW posts and auxiliaries in the areas from Perryville to Ste. Genevieve and from St. James to Arnold.

“Mel took his love for riding motorcycles and combined that with helping people,” said Shirley.

Mel passed away unexpectedly at the age of 54 on June 21 at Mercy Hospital South in St. Louis. He had just been elected as the VFW’s junior vice commander of District 8 and most recently served as vice commander and chairman of the youth activities programs for the Desloge post, and District 8 captain.

Wife Shirley said Mel has always been a delegator, an excel-

lent leader within the VFW post and loved everyone.

“He was one of the driving forces of this post,” she said. “He will be greatly missed.”

Mel was also a member of the Masonic Lodge 598 in Leadwood, AMVETS, Legacy Life member of VFW Post 2426 in Desloge, American Legion Post 83 in Bonne Terre, life member of Order of the Cootie Grape Nuts 56, and No. 1 of the First 8 District VFW Riders.

Shirley said Mel was taken far too soon. He was the love of her life and he was “Sonny” because he was always sunny and happy. She said he was compassionate and always friendly with everyone.

“We just didn’t have enough time together,” she said.

Shirley said Mel made the best omelets. He loved to fish, research his family history, take the boat out on the lake, spend time with his family, and watch St. Louis Cardinals baseball games.

He also drove his Harley Davidson motorcycle everywhere. The couple often went on road trips together all over the country.

“Mel has ridden motorcycles all his life,” said Shirley. “He’s been in love with Harley Davidsons since he was young.”

He worked as an IT specialist for the past 22 years at Millipore Sigma.

Park Hills resident Joe Misuraca has known Mel for 26 years and described him as his lifelong best friend who was just like a brother. He said Mel was understanding,

smart, kind, generous and always fearless.

“Mel just wanted everybody to be happy and wanted the best for everyone,” he said. “He never met a stranger.”

The pair met years ago when their sons were in Cub Scouts and Misuraca was the Scout leader. Mel ended up being co-leader with him for Cub Scout Pack 432 for about five years.

Misuraca recalled sitting at Scout Camp with Mel with their feet kicked up by the fire while they talked about the boys and their activities and shared Army stories. One time they had a Dutch oven cobbler-cooking contest. Although it was never officially decided whose was the best, Mel always assumed his dessert came in second place and told Misuraca, “I’ll get you next time.”

After that, the friends lost touch with each other for sev eral years after Misuraca got out of Scouting while Mel held many positions in the organization.

When they ran into each other years later, Mel recruited Misuraca, who’d served in the Army for almost eight years, to join the VFW.

According to Misuraca, Mel had a different style of leadership than most people.

“He wasn’t an in-your-face kind of leader but was the kind of person who wanted you to understand where he was coming from,” he said. “He did it in such a polite manner and believed in leading by example. He also al ways took the hard way over the easy way.”

Mel approached problems calmly and was consistently the voice of reason. He looked at situations objectively and tried to consider the other person’s perspective.

“Mel would say, ‘This person is a troubled veteran,’” said Misuraca. “We need to be there for him and understand why he acted that way.”

Misuraca said Mel was a big advocate of supporting his community and was passionate about helping his fellow veterans.

“Everything I’ve learned and done with the VFW I can contribute to Mel,” said Misuraca. “He’s passed along so much knowledge and always supported me. He was a good moral compass for so many. He was my mentor, my friend, and my brother.”

Misuraca said when people walked in the door at the VFW post, Mel had a smile on his face and greeted that person. He also had a corny sense of humor.

He loved to get into character while singing karaoke to Clar ence Carter’s song “Strokin’” which the post members found hysterical. He often tried to get post members to join in singing “I Am a Man of Constant Sor row,” the popular song from the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” He also enjoyed singing Bruno Mars’ song “Uptown Funk” and even occasionally showed up with an Elvis mask to sing “Teddy Bear.”

Regardless of whether Mel was joking around, singing karaoke or working to help others, he was passionate about the things he believed in the most. He loved his family dearly, was devoted to his country, and wanted to help his fellow veterans.

Pam Clifton is a contributing writer for the Daily Journal

SUBMITTED

Mel and Shirley Brinkley are shown here at the start of the Missouri Veterans of Foreign Wars Department Convention in Springfield in 2019.

Mel Brinkley first served in the Army National Guard.

Mel Brinkley served in the Marine Corps as a logistics embarkation specialist.

FILE PHOTO

In 2021, Mel Brinkley, senior vice commander of the Desloge VFW Post, leads West County students in the Pledge of Allegiance during a Patriot Day Ceremony.

Mel Brinkley served in many leadership capacities for the VFW.

STORIES OF HONOR

Teacher’s life changed by stint in Marines

Barzowski spent 27 years teaching American history, government at AVHS

KEVIN R. JENKINS kjenkins@farmingtonpressonline.com

Every military veteran has their own story to tell. Some grew up with a dream of joining up when they were old enough to enlist, others ended up serving their country because they received a low draft number or needed a steady job to provide for their family. Not every veteran sees combat or becomes a hero in battle. What almost all of them have in common, however, is the belief that their lives were made better by the time they spent in the military.

For instance, take the story of Don Barzowski, 56, a man who has spent almost 30 years living in Ironton, teaching high school and raising a family. He never grew up with any burning desire to join the armed forces, and once he found himself in uniform, it took him a while to settle into military life. Looking back on his military career, however, Barzowski has come to realize what a difference it made in the man, husband, father and teacher he was to become.

“I was born July 23, 1966, on the south side of Chicago, which I still get a lot of grief for living around here,” Barzowski said. “I always say that if your parents loved you and you grew up in Chicago, they sent you to private school. So, my mom was a nurse, my dad was an ironworker, and I went to the local parish Catholic school and the local Catholic high school.

“Then I went to college for a semester, which I didn’t handle very well — all that freedom — escaping the Catholic nuns and priests. I dropped out of college after my first semester and was working a not-so-pleasant job. My neighborhood had a lot of issues. It was an Irish-Catholic neighborhood, and I was Polish. I could just tell that I had to get out of there.”

While coming home from what he describes as a “dead-end job,” Barzowski stopped by the local Marine Corps recruiting office.

“I was a total victim of the ad campaign, ‘The Few, The Proud, The Marines,’” he said, laughing. “If I was going to join, I was going to join the best, and so I joined the Marines. I went in July 27, four days after my 19th birthday, and shipped out on Aug. 8. My dad was a Marine in the late ‘50s, so we were both sorta Cold War veterans who never saw combat. I went to boot camp, and it was awful. Then, I went to school, and it was better.

“I was an electronics technician — teletype, telephone and switchboard — which doesn’t even exist anymore. My dad’s MOS (Military Occupational Specialties) was the same, but then he was colorblind, so he ended up being a tanker. So, we both served at 29 Palms [Marine Corps Communication-Electronics School] in the high desert of Southern California, which is the largest Marine Corps base in the country — and the largest beach in the world, except there’s no water. It’s just sand.”

Barzowski spent a couple of years at 29 Palms. He never went overseas. His duties were strictly stateside.

“We were supposed to do cold weather training in Finland one year, and it got canceled for whatever reason — funding, I think,” he

said. “Yuma, Arizona, Glenview Naval Air Station. I went to Cherry Point for a small amount of time. I went to about six or seven Marine Corps bases, but my main station was 29 Palms Naval Air Station. I’ll just be honest; I resisted the Marine Corps wholeheartedly at the beginning. It took me a long time to get with the program. It took me around three years. I learned a lot — valuable life lessons.

“At the end of my hitch, it was January 1991, and it was the first Desert Storm — Iraq had just in vaded Kuwait. George H.W. Bush had put this deadline on for the end of January that they had to get out or we were going in. Of course, the Marines are always the first ones in. So, my unit got called up. We got orders for March 15, 1991. I was a sergeant by then — that was what I mustered out as. We were all packed up and ready to go. I had mixed feelings about it. I’ll be honest, I was scared to go because we didn’t know what we were going to run into. Then March 9 the war ended, our orders got stayed and we never went.”

After that close call, he was ready for civilian life.

“So, I got out in July 1991 — and I celebrated my freedom from the Marine Corps that July 4,” he said.

“I went home to visit my family, but I decided that Chicago wasn’t the place for me. When I got out, I’d already had some college in the Marine Corps, so I decided to start studying history and getting seri-

ous because I had been attracted to it in high school. I went to Eastern Illinois University, which was part of my special benefits from the Marine Corp. It was kind of like an enhanced G.I. Bill. They paid for me to go to college. They paid my room and board and gave me a stipend of $140 a month. That doesn’t sound like a lot right now, but I got by.

“I did a double major because I got interested in philosophy. I was going to school free, so I was just taking all of these classes. Come to the end of the four years, which is what the Marine Corps would pay for, they were like, ‘Yeah, you don’t really have any credits in any particular place to graduate with anything. You’ve got these history credits, these philosophy credits … you took some film classes.’ So, I did graduate with a bachelor of arts with a minor in philosophy, but that was it. No history degree, just a minor in philosophy.”

In the meantime, Barzowski met his wife-to-be, Michelle and they began their lives together.

“I credit three things for the reason I’m still sitting here today — my mom, the Marine Corps and Michelle, my wife,” he said, tearing up. “They saved my life. My mom got me through childhood; in the Marine Corps, I got my act together; and then I met Michelle in college. We went to Oregon to live. We had a baby. Oregon didn’t work out. It was right when they did the federal logging ban, and I was going to graduate school for philosophy. There were no jobs, so we came back to St. Louis, where Michelle’s cousin lived, and I started school at Saint Louis University to get a teaching certificate and degree — which I did.

“In my last semester, Michelle found out she was pregnant. She was really upset. Then she found out she was having twins and she was really happy. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to have three kids now.’ We were both working, but we were living on Medicaid, Section 8 housing, and food stamps. I just blanketed the state with [job] ap-

plications. Arcadia Valley was the first school to offer me a job. We had been coming down here. We used to camp at Marble Creek.”

Within a short period of time, everything changed for the better. The Barzowskis went from living in a St. Louis three-story walkup to owning a home.

He taught school at Arcadia Valley High School for 27 years before retiring this past year. He still coaches track and cross-country, but he’s not in the classroom anymore — something Barzowski admits he misses a great deal.

Asked how he developed a love for history, Barzowski said, “I had two great high school teachers that taught history, and I had great teachers in college. A couple of them were veterans and celebratory of American history. I was never particularly patriotic in high school. When I went into the Marine Corps, I became more patriotic...

“In the year 1999, so four years after I was teaching, I received a fellowship. It’s called The James Madison Fellowship. It’s a fellowship to get a master’s degree in American history or government. They take one from each state every year, and it was quite lucrative — it was a $25,000 scholarship. It paid for my housing and my mortgage when I was living at home. You got to get a master’s degree, and they paid for all of the tuition and books. Because we don’t do a very good job of teaching American government and civics in this country, they couldn’t find a university to satisfy their requirements for the fellowship, which was basically 18 hours in civics and American government. So, they created a program at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.”

Barzowski attended a seminar for six weeks in the first year of the fellowship. In the year 2000, he headed out for D.C. and what he experienced there changed his life.

“I met Senator Ted Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Kennedy,” he said. “The professors we had there were from American University in Georgetown and other places like Ohio State University. These were the guys who wrote the book on constitutional history and current topics. We read some books that celebrated the genius of the U.S. Constitution and the American form of government — which is being tested right now, admittedly. I was like, ‘This is important. This is cool stuff.’

“It gave me the background and confidence that I could teach this stuff. I felt like it was an important mission. That’s why I took teaching government so seriously. Part of the American story was chronicled by Alexis de Tocqueville when he came over here from France to study prisons in the 1830s. He was constantly pounding home the point that one of the great things about America is its civic organizations.

“Every town had two or three civic organizations, like Kiwanis, the Optimist Club and Rotary. Once I started doing things like the Key Club (a Kiwanis organization for high school students) and other volunteer stuff we did, like going out and singing Christmas carols at Christmas, and seeing the older ladies cry because the kids came and sang on their porch, which people don’t do anymore. It was rewarding and I thought it connected the curriculum to real life. It’s important.”

Kevin R. Jenkins is the managing editor of the Farmington Press and can be reached at 573-783-9667 or kjenkins@farmingtonpressonline.com

KEVIN R. JENKINS , KJENKINS@FARMINGTONPRESSONLINE.COM

Don Barzowski says there are three reasons why he is alive today — his mother, the U.S. Marine Corps and his wife, Michelle. He spent most of his 27 years at Arcadia Valley High School teaching government and American history.

PROVIDED BY DON BARZOWSKI Don Barzowski is pictured with his wife Michelle.

PROVIDED BY DON BARZOWSKI

For the first three years of his six-year stint in the U.S. Marine Corps, Don Barzowski said he had a difficult time “getting with the program.”

Trotter is grateful for his military experience

PAM CLIFTON

Contributing Writer

Frankclay resident and veteran James “Jim” Trotter joined the U.S. Army in June 1985 as a way to pay for college.

He took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test in high school and received a high score.

“At that point, the only thing I had ever worked on was bicycles,” said Trotter, “and I knew I wanted to learn skills to have a successful career.”

He left for the Army in October 1985 and completed basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

“The physical part of basic training wasn’t bad because I was just out of high school,” said Trotter, “but the mental part was tough because they try to make you quit. They try to break you down.”

He was a squad leader for six of the eight weeks of basic training. Trotter trained to become a heavy wheel vehicle mechanic.

He was the first in his mechanics class to receive orders to go to Fort Ord, California, where he was stationed at the 7th Infantry Division for 26 months.

After that, Trotter was then sent to the U.S. Army Garrison-Humphreys, also called Camp Humphreys, located in South Korea. Camp Humphreys is home to one of the busiest U.S. Army airfields in Asia.

Trotter served as a mechanic in a transportation unit in Korea for a year. He worked on military trucks and also drove a five-ton wrecker.

Trotter recalled a few situations from Korea which involved one of his least favorite things … snakes.

One time he was servicing an M915, a regular road tractor used to haul missions by the Army.

“I had just gone underneath it on a Creeper [a frame on wheels which slides under a vehicle] and came out to get a wrench to adjust the brakes,” he said. “Suddenly I saw a white snake coiled up staring right at me, and it was in the spot where I had just been.”

Trotter said he grabbed the driveshaft and shoved himself out of that spot lightning fast. It was then when he was informed the snake is one of the most poisonous in the country.

While serving in Korea, Trotter injured his knee and required surgery. He shared a hospital room with four other soldiers while he recuperated. Each time the soldiers’ meals were delivered, Trotter was confused as to why his four roommates enjoyed things like hot dogs, hamburgers and other American food. But he was the only one who received Korean food for each meal.

So, each night Trotter snuck out of his hospital room and hobbled down the hallway to the vending machine.

“They were feeding me Kimchi and other Korean foods,” he said. “I was starving. I even lost weight while I was in the hospital.”

After two of his roommates were discharged and the third was getting ready to leave, he walked over to Trotter and said, “Man, it’s been a real blast trying to watch you eat all of that Korean food but I just can’t do it anymore.”

Confused, Trotter asked him what he meant. The soldier pointed out the menu that was located beneath Trotter’s tray.

“You could have been filling that menu out the whole time,” the soldier said.

To this day, Trotter still shakes his head at the fun the soldiers had at his expense.

“I could have been eating Ameri can food the whole time with them,” he said. “I just didn’t know because nobody bothered to tell me and I never looked under my tray.”

While Trotter was in Korea, he did enjoy authentic Korean food when they traveled to some of the nearby villages. He said vendors set up on the corners sold delicious foods like Yaki Mandu, a steamed or fried dumpling similar to a Chinese pot-

sticker,

Trotter’s service in Korean ended in 1989 and he returned home to get married in July.

He was stationed for about a year at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in the ammunition company as a forklift mechanic and assistant wrecker driver.

The U.S. invaded Panama starting in December 1989. Trotter was not deployed at this time, although half of his unit was.

Once soldiers returned from Panama, they resumed their on-base daily routines until the Persian Gulf War against Iraq in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait began. This was the beginning of Desert Shield, the initial troop buildup to Desert Storm. This took place from August to January.

On a Monday in 1990, Trotter went in at 5:30 a.m. for routine physical training. Instead of soldiers exercising and starting their day in a normal way, they were running around with their weapons and gathering their field gear. Apparently, an alert had been called at 3:30 that morning after Saddam Hussein had ordered the invasion and occupation of Kuwait.

“I had accidentally missed the alert call,” said Trotter, “so I had to

go back home because I lived offbase and got all of my equipment and told my wife goodbye because I was leaving the country.”

He quickly packed his things and prepared to ship out of the country. His platoon was on alert status, and they were preparing all of their equipment to take with them. That included about 6,000-pound rough-terrain forklifts.

“I was a forklift mechanic and we were sending those one at a time with a mechanic,” he said, “because they were so old and required a lot of maintenance to get on a plane. The Air Force is pretty strict about no oil leaks, etc.”

The first alert was given in August, and Trotter left the U.S. in September. After a brief stop in Spain to refuel, he finally arrived in Saudi Arabia.

“I got there and was the only one from my unit, so I didn’t know if I was going to get attached to a different unit or see any of my friends from my unit,” he said.

Trotter said when they finally landed, the air conditioning on the plane was stuck at 42 degrees. He drove the fork lift straight off the plane onto the tarmac which was almost 130 degrees.

“Your first job in the Army is to be a soldier, and my second job was

to be a mechanic,” he said. “That’s what basic training is for, to teach you how to become a soldier. So everything reverts back to the first basic training you receive in the Army when you go overseas.”

In January 1991, Trotter realized how volatile the current situation was when he and other soldiers were servicing their equipment in preparation to travel north. They were stationed at a Korean worker’s compound. It was an overcast day.

The air war had already started, but war on the ground had not yet began.

Trotter was working on a Chevy pickup and was covered with grease up to his elbows. All of a sudden they heard what sounded like fireworks. They looked to the south to see three yellow fireballs shooting into the sky. A few seconds later, just to the outside of the compound, a massive explosion erupted and the sky turned orange.

Immediately, all of the soldiers yelled, “Gas!” This initiated the gas warning. The soldiers knew that was their nuclear biological chemical warning and they had to immediately suit up in protective gear.

“We had to get our MOP suit on immediately, which was what we wore in case of nuclear or chemical weapons,” he said. “We were trained to put all our gear on in eight minutes, from insulated coveralls to rubber boots and everything.”

Trotter moved so rapidly that he had all of the grease wiped from his arms and was suited up in less than three minutes.

“That’s how scared I was,” he said.

Trotter completed his active-duty military service after six and a half years, in April 1992. He earned numerous awards and citations for his service, including the Army Commendation Medal, two Army Achievement Medals, two Good Conduct Medals, Na tional Defense Ribbon, Southwest Asia Campaign Ribbon with both stars for Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Ribbon, Liberation of Kuwait Medal, Mechanic Badge, Driver Badge, Sharpshooter Badge, and two Presidential Unit Citations.

He said his military experience taught him a great deal about loyalty, seniority, teamwork and per severance.

“Just when you think you’re done and you have nothing left to give, there’s still more to give,” he said.

Trotter also learned to pay attention to details, particularly in cleaning and preparing his uniform.

“If you’ve been in the military, you understand,” he said. “You do everything exactly. You abide by all the rules. You’re very disciplined.”

Trotter said when he returned from the Gulf War, people ex pressed their appreciation for his service.

“I was a veteran and had just returned from the war and people were appreciative of our service,” he said. “But my wife’s brother came back from Vietnam and it was completely different for him. He should have been treated like we were.”

Trotter said he’s grateful for his experience in the military.

“But it’s not a joke,” he said. “You have to be prepared to drop everything and say goodbye to your family at a moment’s notice.”

“When you tell your loved ones goodbye, you don’t know if you’re coming back. You don’t know what you’re going into.”

or Korean bulgogi, thinly sliced tender barbecue beef.

Pam Clifton is a contributing writer for the Daily Journal

Jim Trotter is shown here in Korea in 1988.

Pictured is Jim Trotter in November 1985 at basic training.

This photograph shows Jim Trotter in Korea in 1988 with a wrecker with extended boom. He had just finished unloading and placing the generator on the ground behind the wrecker when he realized he was stuck in the ditch.

This photograph shows Jim Trotter in 1987 at Fort Ord, California.

Schoelhamer served 28 years in the Army and would do it all again

VICTORIA KEMPER vkemper@democratnewsonline.com

As a young man, Army 1st Sgt. Mike Schoelhamer chose to follow in his father’s footsteps by enlisting into the United States Army.

After making the decision, and taking those first steps, he spent the next 28 years serving his country.

Schoelhamer began his career as a finance specialist for four years but the majority of his active duty was spent in signal communications. For 15 years, he had the important job of keeping the lines of communication open. His final 9 years would be served in the Army Recruiting Command.

Schoelhamer said he chose the Army because as a youngster he was motivated by its history as the oldest and largest branch.

When asked why he continued serving for 28 years, Schoelhamer said, he felt a sense of pride in what he was doing.

“Serving the country, I felt like I was doing something,” Schoelhamer said. “It just made me feel good about taking care of people at home. I felt patriotic, I guess.

“Growing up in a patriotic family, I felt drawn to serving in the military and desired to do some thing meaningful,” Schoelhamer said. “My father served in the US Army in the 1960s, many of my uncles have also served. My uncle Dean was in the Air Force. My uncle Jim was in the Army. My uncle Mike was in the Marines. Then my great uncle Mike, who I got my middle name of Michael from, he fought in the 1940s and died in the Pacific during the battle of Leyte Island in defense of this great nation, earning him a Purple Heart.”

Schoelhamer has also seen an active war zone as he was deployed to Tirana, Albania during the Kosovo Conflict.

The year was 1998-1999, Schoelhamer was stationed in Germany at the time when his battalion received orders to deploy to Albania for Task Force Hawk.

“We rail loaded our equipment from Germany to Tirana and we got on a C130 and flew in,” Schoelhamer said. “We were with the infantry when we first got to Tirana

there and set up on the airbase. Then, got out on a perimeter and all that. Tirana is right there next to Kosovo. We went out the wire and went on convoys.”

Schoelhamer said he was only there for maybe six months but that was long enough.

“It wasn’t long at all but it was a pretty serious thing going on at the time,” Schoelhamer said. “I didn’t have to stay as long because with communications you do your thing, get it all set up, make sure it is working 24 hours a day, no hiccups and somebody comes and replaces you.”

Schoelhamer said during his deployments, he was able to see a lot of different cultures and it has opened his eyes to what is going on everywhere.

“I think it made me definitely more knowledgeable to what is

going on all around,” Schoelhamer said. “When I was deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo and Albania, third-world countries, you are in Humvees driving along dirt roads with kids running behind us because they are starving.

“It really makes you appreciate what you have back here. It is something that I won’t ever forget. We would throw them some things but it just makes you feel so bad.”

Schoelhamer also spent five years in Germany and 18 months in Korea. During his 28 years, he was also able to experience many different parts of the United States including Fort Lee in Petersburg, Virginia, Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, Fort Leonard Wood in St. Robert, Missouri, Fort Dix near Trenton, New Jersey, Fort Lewis near Marysville, Washington, Fort

Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Fort Knox located in Fort Knox, Kentucky, just to name a few.

When asked if he would do it all over again, Schoelhamer gave a resounding “yes.”

“My feeling of service to my country and personal accom plishment will always be with me,” Schoelhamer said.

As a volunteer for Heart & Soul Hospice, Schoelhamer continues to make an impact on his country, his community, and his fellow veterans. Part of his volunteer duties includes presenting/awarding

veterans certificates

“I also like to listen and share stories with them and let them know they will never be forgot ten,” Schoelhamer said. “I definitely have a good relation with any veteran.

“You have veterans that have disabilities, PTSD, brain trauma, and just talking to another veteran they understand the lingo and they know that you are a brother in arms or sister in arms. They know that I’ve walked the same ground. It is a common ground that we can relate to and it definitely helps.”

in order to thank them for their service and sacrifices.

FILE PHOTO

Mike Schoelhamer receives a gift from the Fredericktown Student Council for his service to the country during the 2019 Veterans Day services.

Pictured is Mike Schoelhamer in his dress blues as Army First Sergeant.

Mike Schoelhamer in his dress greens as Rank Specialist after his first assignment in Germany during his first job as Finance Specialist.

Rawlins believes in ‘veterans helping veterans’

MARK MARBERRY mmarberry@farmingtonpressonline. com

A visible presence in Farmington when it comes to memorializing all who served their country, Jerry Rawlins served in Vietnam as a Navy Seabee.

“The military is our country’s insurance policy,” he said. “It’s to defend all of our country from whomever may want to cause harm to us.”

Growing up three miles from Bismarck, his father’s farm was just on the other side of the county line so Rawlins had to travel 10 miles to school in Caledonia.

“I went the first three years to a one-room country school,” he said. “Then, in the early 1950s, they consolidated all the country schools into the larger schools and I went to Caledonia.”

Rawlins joined the Navy in December of 1963 after graduating from high school in May.

“I wanted to be a Seabee. In 1965, my battalion was getting ready to go to Vietnam, I auto matically got extended because I didn’t have enough service left to take that tour,” he said. “Right after I got extended, they had an opening for a billet of two deep sea divers. I applied for diving school, got accepted and went to San Diego for Second Class diving school. I was qualified in scuba gear, lightweight gear and deep sea gear.”

According to Rawlins, the battalion left in March of 1966 and went to Vietnam and stayed there until October.

“I came back and got out in April 1967 and stayed in California for a year and then came back home in 1968,” he said. “After I came home, I worked construction for a while. I worked at the iron mine at Pilot Knob from when they opened to when they closed.”

In 1975 Rawlins joined the Missouri National Guard and served there for 19 years and retired as first sergeant.

“Then I went into Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), which is really just a name on a roster,” he said. “In any of the Reserve components, you have to have 20 years combination active duty and/or Reserve component so you can draw your pension at age 60.

When I retired in 1994, I was 49 years old, but I stayed in the IRR and then joined a reserve unit so I could accumulate more retirement points.”

Active duty again surfaced for Rawlins as he was called up by the Army in September of 2004. He went to Fort Leonard Wood, then to Fort Benning, Georgia and ended up in Iraq.

“I was there from January to June of 2005,” he said. “They figured out how old I was and sent me back to retirement.”

Rawlins was not visible locally as a veteran until the early 1990s. He said that he was simply too busy with work, family and school activities to be involved with veterans organizations.

“In 2000, I really got involved with the Farmington VFW and American Legion,” he said. “A couple of years later I got involved with the Disabled American Veterans.

“I do things like Veterans Day, Memorial Day and POW/MIA services. I am currently the vice commander of the American Legion. I took the job as Building and Grounds chairman of the Legion. That job consists of taking care of the Legion building, the

VA Clinic and the grounds. That job is pretty extensive, it involves all the maintenance and upkeep on the clinic. I do a lot of the little things myself.”

Rawlins also belongs to the Bismarck VFW.

“One of the things I like about that is that we have an honors team and I am a part of it,” he said. “We go to different cemeteries and perform a service for

veterans as requested. So far, the post has done 55 this year. We are down a bit, we generally do 100 a year. We have a food pantry that helps out some people over there.”

Rawlins often assists with flag retirement ceremonies.

“I feel blessed that I am in good enough shape at 76 years old that I can be involved in all of these things,” he said. “My health is good, I have good genetics. My

wife takes good care of me, she’s a nurse.

“I’ll continue doing these things. We have a saying: ‘Veterans helping veterans.’ We try to do what we can. There’s some of us getting older and can’t do what they used to, we have a hard time getting younger guys to come in.

“I’m not quitting, but I want to phase out gradually. I am wanting somebody younger to step in and

take my place. If I keep going and one day I die, then nobody knows what’s going on. I won’t say that I am burnt out, but I feel like I’ve done my share the last 20 years and I want more involvement and we are getting some. We have a young commander, Chris Morris, at the Farmington VFW and he’s energetic and he’s trying. We have a terrific commander at the Legion, John Kramer.”

Like other groups and organizations, Rawlins is concerned about the future of the American Legion, VFW and other veterans groups.

“We’re all volunteers,” he said. “We volunteer our time to help the organizations which in turn helps the community.

“It’s a struggle. All the veterans organizations’ numbers are down and it’s discouraging because the higher the numbers, the more voters we have and the more Congress will listen to us on doing things to help veterans. Years from now, there’s going to be a lot less individual posts than there are now, it’s unfortunate.”

Mark Marberry is a reporter for the Farmington Press and Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3629, or at mmarberry@ farmingtonpressonline.com

MARK MARBERRY PHOTOS , MMARBERRY@FARMINGTONPRESSONLINE.COM

Jerry Rawlins is pictured with the rifle team he commanded in front of the St. Francois County Courthouse on Veterans Day in 2021.

Jerry Rawlins stands at attention at the St. Francois County Courthouse.

Jerry Rawlins (center, in jacket) helps out at a flag retirement at Veteran’s Park in Farmington.

Vice Commander Jerry Rawlins is pictured at the LePere-McCalister American Legion Post 416 in Farmington

Joe Holloway reflects on fixing planes, realities of war, and the strength of family

BOBBY RADFORD bradford@dailyjournalonline.com

For 32 years, Park Hills native Joe Holloway Jr. served his coun try in both the US Army and Air Force, meeting four presidents and forming life-long friendships in the uncertainty and challenges of war.

Holloway’s military career began straight out of high school. In 1982, he graduated from Central High School before joining the Army, where he would work as a combat engineer for the next three years. Holloway decided to make a move to the Air Force when he married his wife in 1985.

“My wife, Darla, and I talked it over and decided it was best to switch to the Air Force because it’s much more family orientated,” Holloway explained. “So, March of ‘85, I went into the Air Force, did my second boot camp. I got to do boot camp twice.”

In the Air Force, Holloway worked as an aerospace ground equipment mechanic, also referred to as a ground support mechanic.

“I worked on all the equipment and serviced the airplane on the ground,” he said. “Their genera tors, air conditioners, the hydraulic units, checked their flaps and their brakes, landing gear when he was on the ground.

Throughout his Air Force career, Holloway worked with a wide range of the military’s biggest and best flying machines.

“I was really, really fortunate working with different airframes over the years,” he said. “I started out with refuelers, the tankers, and the B-52s. Then I went to the B-1s, which were new then in ‘86-’87; I was stationed in South Dakota and Montana with them.”

In 1989, Holloway began working with fighter jets like the F-4 and later the F-15s. The last leg of Holloway’s military journey brought him back to Missouri, where he worked with the infamous B-2 Stealth Bombers at Whiteman Air Force Base from 2008-2014.

As an airplane mechanic, Holloway’s job sometimes included servicing Air Force One, the president’s aircraft. He said he met four presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Holloway even got the chance to talk with Clinton about visiting parts of Missouri, like Poplar Bluff, which the former president had done when he was younger living in Arkansas.

Holloway said his desire to serve his country was sparked at an early age during a time when scenes of soldiers fighting war oversees were broadcast nightly into American living rooms.

“As a young kid, I watched Walter Cronkite in the evenings with my dad,” he recalled. “I mean, back then, you had three stations on TV, and you had to turn the antenna. Of course, I was born in ‘64, so I watched a lot of Vietnam, and I always said I was going to do that as a kid.”

Holloway said he grew up with the images of Army soldiers in his mind. Even when a shot at playing college football was knocking at his door, his sights remained set on a military future.

“My senior year in high school, I played football for Central, and I had a chance to go play football in Arkansas,” he said. “And I joined the Army instead because that’s what I always wanted to do.”

Fast forward to 2007, when Hol-

loway was stationed in Iraq at the Balad Air Base, also known as Camp Anaconda, 40 miles north of Baghdad in the Sunni Triangle.

“That was one of the major times where we were mortared and RPGed a lot,” Holloway recalled.

To keep busy, Holloway said he volunteered for 12 hours a day, seven days a week. He said he would volunteer in the hospital three or four days a week.

“You have nothing else to do,” he explained. “And so they had a program there; as volunteers, you could go in, and you could wipe beds, unload trucks ... so the nursing staff and doctors could pay more attention to the soldiers and Marines coming in.

“That was where I got my first glimpse of what war actually does to a person,” he said. “What the IEDs did, tore limbs off, you know, killed people.”

Holloway said before that time, he hadn’t seen much bloodshed in the Air Force or in his three years with the Army. He witnessed the dire realities of war up close while volunteering in the field hospital tents.

“There was an instance where another guy and I had volunteered, and we went out to the helipad to pick up two wounded one night,” said Holloway. “There was a convoy that hit an IED coming into the base and [the helicopter] had picked up several wounded. So when they landed, we were expecting guys to walk off [the helicopter] and to have already been bandaged, you know,

and we’d help them into the ER.”

“I’ll never forget, the crew chief opened the door, and blood started going everywhere because the helo was still running,” he explained. “And we started carting bodies out of there.”

Holloway said after he helped bring the wounded soldiers into the ER area, he started to leave but was called back in by a nurse to help. Later, after the soldiers were stabilized, he stuck around and helped one of the injured soldiers get his mind off the traumatic situation.

A chaplain happened to overhear Holloway’s reassuring efforts, asking if Holloway had received training with such a helpful bedside manner. Holloway chalked it up to divine influence, saying, “the good Lord put me in there, and the good Lord made sure that I knew what to say.”

Holloway would experience other IED destruction later in his time, serving 12 months in Afghanistan. He said the first improvised explosive device they encountered was on Sept. 10, 2011.

“The one we hit that day was when we were coming back, and he got the back of our truck and the front of the truck behind us,” said Holloway. “I mean, besides brain rattle, as we call it, the gunner in the third vehicle was the only one that really got ‘injured-injured,’ so to speak. You could see he got burned; his face got burned from the blast. And he was an Air Force guy.

“We’d been in-country for several months at that time, and when

it finally happens, you know, it’s like … because you wait for it,” Holloway said. “From the time I stepped foot in that country, you just wait. It’s like, ‘I’m gonna die today, I’m gonna die today.’ And then after so long, you just get used to it, and it’s like ‘if I die today, I die today.’”

Accepting that death could come at any time is a mentality shared by countless soldiers in all wars. However, Holloway still had opportunities to come home to Missouri on leave and spend time with his family while stationed overseas.

“My youngest, Sam, was a junior in high school,” he noted. “Of course, Central has had a good football team the last several years, but I missed his junior year [playing football], which was a really good year for him.

“I did get to surprise him when I came home on R&R,” said Holloway. “You get 15 days if you’re in-country for a year, and I surprised him at a football game in St. Louis. He didn’t know I was coming home.”

Holloway said his wife, Darla, was working as an RN at Parkland Health Center at the time. He holds tremendous gratitude for Darla, who lovingly cared for their family

when he was away.

“All those years, a lot of times the spouses and the kids go through so much,” he said. “My wife … anniversaries, birthdays, holidays … she had to endure it all and hold the household together. Darla ... she was a saint. She married into the military, so she really didn’t know what she was getting into at the time.”

Holloway was joined by his wife, kids, mother, and father at Whiteman Air Force Base in June 2014 when he retired. “It was it was a good day,” he said.

As far as friends made while serving, Holloway mentioned that he gets together each year with three buddies he met in Afghanistan.

“It’s a bond that you can never get in the civilian world,” he said of the friendships formed. “It’s a brotherhood that most people don’t understand. When you’re going through every day waiting to die, you depend on each other, especially in combat. It’s just not you; it’s a whole team.”

Bobby Radford is a reporter for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at bradford@dailyjournalonline.com

BOBBY RADFORD BRADFORD@DAILYJOURNALONLINE.COM

US Army and Air Force Veteran Joe Holloway reflects on more than three decades of military service.

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY JOE HOLLOWAY

Joe Holloway sits in the cockpit of an F-15 fighter jet during a tour in the US Air Force.

Joe Holloway and other service members salute the flag at an overseas military base.

US Army and Air Force Veteran Joe Holloway walks alongside a humvee while deployed in Afghanistan.

US Army and Air Force Veteran Joe Holloway gives a friendly wave during one of his deployments.

At nearly 91, Cook would serve again

DANIELLE THURMAN dthurman@dailyjournalonline.com

Nearly 40 years of Ernie Cook’s life have been dedicated to serving his country, and Cook said if there were another war and he was able to, he would join again.

Cook will turn 91 years old in November. Known to friends as Sarge, Cook has spent 39 years, 10 months, and 12 days of his life serving. During his long career, Cook served in the Air Force, the Army, the Army National Guard, and the Army Reserves.

Originally from Bollinger County near Patton, Cook was born in 1931. Cook knew about war at a young age. He remembers his brothers getting called to serve in World War II.

Too young to serve in that war, Cook instead spent time serving during the Korean War, Vietnam War, Desert Shield, and Desert Storm. Cook went into the war in 1951, and stayed active until 1953 when the war ended by the armistice. During the Korean War, Cook mostly worked in the supply convoy trucks on the road, and rode as a train guard moving units around Korea.

“What little I’ve done didn’t matter too much, but all of us together did,” he said.

After the Korean War ended, Cook decided to retire from the Army, and then got in and repeated the process a few times.

During the last several years before retiring, Cook had been stationed at the main compound of the Jefferson Barracks as a su pervisor for recruiting. As a squad leader, Cook had been sent to a lot of various schools to recruit. Recruiting, according to Cook, was a hard job as there were pressure to fill a quota.

“I don’t have much of a story to tell. I’m no hero, the heroes didn’t make it back,” said Cook. “The biggest story I can tell anyone is we went where we were sent, we did what we were told, came back and brought our flag back.”

Cook told a story about his brother, who during World War II, had been wounded when a Japanese kamikaze dove into the ship.

“It’s hard to forget, and you wonder why you remember it, but the good Lord wants you to remember it,” he said.

Before joining the service, Cook worked at Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, now known as PPG Industries, in Crystal City. After retiring, Cook came back to the area and settled in Bonne Terre. Back in civilian life, Cook worked as a heavy equipment operator for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 513.

After the passing of his first wife, Cook married Barbara, whose husband had also passed. He enjoys living in Bonne Terre, and has become friends with Bonne Terre Police Chief Doug Calvert, as well as St. Francois County Sheriff Dan Bullock. He also remains actively involved in city matters, attending the city council meetings often.

“It’s interesting to know what’s going on in our town,” Cook said, “we’re part of it.”

Cook is also a deacon at the Cornerstone Baptist Church. He and his wife are active in his church, going to church often with Sunday School, and then attend church Sunday, day and night. Cook said he and his wife enjoy going, and have made a lot of good friends.

He’s kept busy after retirement, and has been involved in many veterans groups. Having made friends

both during the war and after being retired, he said the many veterans organizations have been good to him.

Cook is an active member and chaplain of the Bonne Terre VFW Post 6883, a life member of the Disabled American Veterans, American Legion, and other veterans organizations. He said he enjoys seeing different guys from the groups.

He appreciates the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), even if he has to go every six months to the Jefferson Barracks for blood work, as well as visiting the doctor at the Barracks. Cook said they take good care of him up at the Barracks.

“I got an awful lot of friends, the veterans organization, so that’s good, and I enjoy it so much that I’m the chaplain at the VFW in Bonne Terre,” Cook explained. “It’s good to be a veteran, and I have good friends as veterans.”

One of the friends he made is a former Navy Seal who had served in Vietnam and is involved with the Bonne Terre VFW. When Cook was stationed at Jefferson Barracks, the two received the chance to host colors in 1982 at Busch Memorial Stadium (Busch Stadium II).

Having lifelong friends can be devastating, too. On Thursday, Cook attended a burial for a friend

who was also a fellow Korean War veteran at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. Cook said if one can call a cemetery beautiful, the Jefferson Barracks cemetery is beautiful. Cook joked for when it’s his time. He told his wife his name will have to include Sarge somehow, otherwise no one will know it is him and they’ll have to hire pallbearers if they don’t include it.

“I love this country, and if I was not 91 years old, and they had another war and they needed me I’d

be glad to do it again if I could. If you’ve ever been in a foreign country and you don’t watch that American flag fly over our country, it’s some other flag. It’s good to get back home to see that again. It’s a great country, it’s worth fighting for.”

Danielle Thurman is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be contacted at dthurman@ dailyjournalonline.com or 573-5183616.

DANIELLE THURMAN PHOTOS , DTHURMAN@DAILYJOURNALONLINE.COM

Ernie Cook, 90, of Bonne Terre stands beside a shadowbox of medals he received during his time serving. Cook served his country for nearly 40 years, and said he would do so again if the country needed him.

For his 80th birthday, Ernie Cook’s grandson flew an American flag over the Pentagon building. The grandson is in civil service at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Talking about the flag, Cook got a little teary-eyed.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY ERNIE COOK.

While serving at the Jefferson Barracks in 1982, Cook, holding the American flag, was a part of the group of men who hosted Colors at a St. Louis Cardinals ballgame at Busch Memorial Stadium.

Pictured is one of the few shadow boxes in the home of Ernie and Barbara Cook.

“I

have much

no hero, the heroes didn’t make it back. The biggest story I can tell anyone is we went where we were sent, we did what we were told, came back and brought our flag back.”

Ernie

Cook, veteran

Smith shares military experiences

the military

SARAH HAAS shaas@dailyjournalonline.com

She might have served five years, six months and 14 days in the military, but they could arguably be the most influential of her life. Through them, said Farmington resident Patti Smith, 69, she learned a vocation, traveled the country, met her husband of 45 years, Dennis … and “grew up.”

“My dad was in the Navy for 23 years,” she said. “Basically, until Dennis retired from the Army, I had spent my entire life involved with the military in some way.”

As a girl, Patti and her family moved semi-regularly, following her dad’s military career.

“My dad was in Vietnam in the beginning, and he flew aircraft off ships and tracked submarines up and down the coast of Vietnam,” she said. “He sent a letter home one time and wanted to know if Mom could pack him a care package with snacks he could put in the pockets of his flight suit, in case he got shot down he could have something to eat. That did not go over well with my mother.”

Born in 1952 in Bonne Terre, she has lived in New Jersey, started school at Midway Island out in the Pacific Ocean, went through first and second grade in Oahu, moved to Millington Naval Air Station outside of Memphis, and then her family put down roots in California, first in San Diego and finally at Lemoore Naval Air Station in the San Joaquin Valley, from which her father retired and where she graduated from high school.

Smith said she knew she didn’t want to go to college, but she didn’t want to stay home, either. So she signed up for the Air Force.

“Being in the military gives you security. You’re gonna get paid. You’ve always got something to wear. And when you first go in, you’re in the barracks so you don’t have to worry about an apartment. You’ve got a place to sleep, and food and clothes,” she said. “So I thought I’d go in and grow up a bit. Try it out. See what happened.”

Medic training was at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. And that’s where the “growing up” went into warp speed.

“I went into medic school at the tail end of Vietnam. Of the 200 people that went through EMT training with me, virtually all of them — except for the females and very few men — went straight to Vietnam,” she said. “While I was there, I was working with some of the guys who came back. It was not fun.

“And I can tell you, I still cannot walk down the (Vietnam Memorial) wall in D.C., and that was a long time ago. Some of the guys I went through school with, didn’t come back.”

Smith said the experience gave her a respect for life “and the fact that you can have your circumstances change very quickly. I don’t take anything for granted. I am grateful every single day for what I have.”

Smith was assigned to Redstone Arsenal in southern Alabama, and she spent time in Germany, where she drove an ambulance “and did the normal

ambulance driver EMT stuff … car acciden ts, anything and everything.”

She met her husband, Dennis, in Denver. They were both assigned to an interagency school at Loughary Air Force Base, which no longer exis ts. Dennis was in the Army, as was Pat tie, who had decided to change branches.

“When it was time for me to re-enlist, there was an abundance of medics, it was at the tail end of Vietnam and they were all coming back,” she said. “So getting promoted was a longshot. You could cross services back then, so I did a very short amount of time in the Army. That way, I could get into a different field and the chances of getting promoted

if I stayed in were better and it was more money.

“When I went to sign into the detachment there, Dennis was the one who signed me in.”

They hit it off and their courtship sped along. When Smith was called to Redstone Arsenal, she decided she was going to give Dennis two weeks to call her before making any decisions about the relationship.

“I walk in (at Fort Rucker) and tell the first sergeant who I was, and he looked at me and said, ‘Oh, you’re the one, these are yours,’ because Dennis had a dozen roses waiting on the first sergeant’s desk when I got there,” Smith remembered.

Eventually, they were married.

“At that point in time, the mil-

itary didn’t make that big of an effort to keep couples together. They’ll tell you, yeah, you can get married, we’ll try to get you within 500 miles of each other,” she said. “And we just didn’t want to do that. Plus, Dennis outranked me, so he made more money than I did. So we opted for me to get out.”

Smith said Dennis’ vocation was a “catch-all,” a 71 Lima providing administrative services to officials, running a post of fice, writing training manuals, recruiting new enlistees to the Army and entering a wide va riety of other occupational adventures.

Protocols had yet to evolve much in the way of accommo dating women in the military, Smith said.

“One of my first sergeants, when I signed in, he looked at me and said, ‘You’re the first woman I’ve ever had here, and if I had my way, you would not be here,’” she remembered. “So I literally had to do everything everybody else did, but do it better. Experiencing military life was completely different for a woman. You could put on your uniform and if you were flying from one place to another, people would think you were a stewardess. It was quite different.”

Smith said she has no regrets about leaving the military, although she does wonder what would happen if she’d stayed in, and how far she could have gotten. Still, the perks have been outstanding, she said.

“The military paid for my college degree, paid for Dennis’ degree, and his retirement pay pretty much allows us to live the way we want,” she said. “We have Tricare, we don’t use the VA and we can go to any doctor we want here…

“You make friends in a way that you don’t make friends in a civilian world,” she said. “There are people we’ve known over the years, we could walk into their house now and it would be like we’d never been apart. It’s just a different kind of friendship.”

Smith said she wouldn’t have changed the decision she made back in California after high school graduation.

“If you’re young and silly and don’t know what you want to do with your life, spending a little time growing up in the military is worth it,” she said.

Sarah Haas is the assistant editor for the Daily Journal. She can be reached at 573-518-3617 or shaas@dailyjournalonline.com.

Pattie Smith’s five and a half years’ service was short, but she’s spent almost all her life with

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Pictured is Pattie Smith in 2022, at brunch in St. Louis. The Farmington resident was born in Bonne Terre, but lived all over the world, following her father’s Navy career, then pursuing her own career as a medic, then following her husband’s Army career.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Pattie Smith served five years, six months and 14 days in the military,

first

in the Air Force and then in the Army. She was part of the last few years of the Women’s Army Corps.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Pattie Smith takes a breather from Air Force duty in Germany around 1974.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Pattie Smith, standing to her husband Dennis’ left, joins Marine security guards during Dennis’ 1988 enlistment at the embassy in Lagos, Nigeria.

“And I can tell you, I still cannot walk down the (Vietnam Memorial) wall in D.C., and that was a long time ago. Some of the guys I went through school with, didn’t come back.”

Pattie Smith, Farmington resident

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Vickey Bonney knew in the 7th grade she wanted to enlist in the U.S. Navy.

“There was just never a question for me,” Bonney said. “I just always knew.”

Bonney said she never even considered any other branch, “what else is there?”

During her senior year of Higbee High School, September 1987, she enlisted, starting her journey with a year of Naval Reserves. Just a year later she would fly out to Orlando, Florida for basic training.

Bonney was well on her way to follow in the footsteps of her grandfather, who served in World War II, and uncle, who served in Vietnam. However, as a woman, her journey would have a few more restrictions than those before her but she never let that get in her way.

“Although I served during Desert Storm, I was not in an active war zone,” Bonney said. “During that time, it was still a relatively new concept to have women in those positions, although, every one of us would have gone if we were called!”

Bonney said during basic training, you fill out a “Dream Sheet” of the top places you would like to be stationed and of course, she chose all overseas locations. She never left stateside.

“We later learned, that whatever you put, you get the opposite,” Bonney said. “I did my ‘boot camp’ and schooling in Orlando, Florida. At that time, it was the only place females could train. After that, I was stationed on a Marine Corps Air Station on the East Coast.”

Bonney said she did not get a lot of travel because at that time, women were not allowed on ships.

During her active duty time Bonney was an engineman/fireman. She said this may have been her title but just like with any job, there are always “other duties as assigned.”

“I was stationed on the East Coast, and our primary pur pose was to provide support to the flight line and the offshore range, utilized for aerial target practice,” Bonney said. “As the engineman, I ensured that the 671 Detroit motors in each vessel was in operating order and running smoothly.

“Additionally, I was a qualified coxswain (steersman of a ship’s boat), so I was also able to drive the boat as needed. As part of the support, I became the first female member of the Search and Rescue Team, assisting with any water rescues, both military and civilian.”

Bonney said during a 24 hour watch, a civilian boater reported a Marine Corps Harrier jet crashing in the sound.

“As the duty officer, I called my crew to action, and utilizing a 22-foot whaler, proceeded to the crash site to lend support to the helicopter rescue team,” Bonney said. “As first on scene, we proceeded to secure the site, search for survivors, and contain fuel and oil spills to the immediate site.”

Bonney said when the helicopter arrived they were only able to

retrieve one of the pilots.

“My team, myself and one other person took action,” Bonney said. “I entered the water, retrieved the semi-conscious pilot, checked his injuries, stabilized him and transferred him

to the vessel. Once back to base, he was transferred to ambulance. Our team received a commendation for our actions that day, and I am happy to report that both pilots survived the incident.” This is just one moment in the

3.5 years of Bonney’s time on active duty. In December of 1990, her status would change to “reserve” for the next 7.5 years.

Bonney said she made many friends throughout those years but has since lost touch with most, losing a few who did not return from Desert Storm.

“However, my best friend joined the Army, after I joined the Navy,” Bonney said. “We were able to stay in touch and be a support to each other, through changes of duty stations, and even with that Army/Navy ri valry, we have been friends for 36 years.”

Bonney said she thinks her time in the service played a major role in creating the person she is today: fiercely loyal, attentive to detail, and having a “get it done” attitude.

“One of the life’s biggest challenges is having an end goal, but no direct path to getting there,” Bonney said. “I think most service members would agree, that our experiences in the service taught us to find a way. We tend

to think outside the box and utilize, what I call creative critical thinking.”

Bonney, who now lives in Washington County, said her military service has bled into every aspect of her life including in the raising of her daughter, who claims Bonney “ran our house like boot camp.”

“But the best thing for me, is the sense of camaraderie with other service men and women,” Bonney said. “It is a common bond between us all, even if we have never met before, we are brothers and sisters. We love our country, we love our constitution and we would still fight to maintain the freedoms that every citizen takes for granted.

“We know the price of those freedoms, we’ve paid it, in our own sacrifices, as well as the sacrifices of those comrades we have lost.”

Bonney said the decision to serve is not one to make lightly.

“Know what you are getting into, do your research and make an informed decision,” Bonney said. “It is a noble thing, it is a selfless act, but it can offer great rewards.”

When asked if she would do it all over again, Bonney said there is no question about it, she would.

“When 9/11 happened, I almost re-enlisted, but I had a young child at home,” Bonney said. “It takes a special person to stand up and say, ‘I don’t know you, but I will protect you. I will trade my life for yours.’

“Essentially, that’s what you do when you enlist, you volunteer to put the safety, security and freedoms of others, ahead of your own. No matter what your job is in the service, no matter the branch you choose, you are serving to protect the very freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so many more, that most in this country take for granted. We have those freedoms because someone paid the price.”

Bonney: ‘I don’t know you, but I will protect you. I will trade my life for yours.’

PROVIDED BY VICKEY BONNEY

Pictured is Vickey Bonney’s portrait from boot camp company K128.

PROVIDED BY VICTORIA ELLEN PHOTOGRAPHY

Pictured is Vickey Bonney, left, with her daughter Allie and husband Dwayne.

PROVIDED BY VICKEY BONNEY

Vickey Bonney, left, has fun during boot camp with one of her fellow enlistees.

PROVIDED BY VICKEY BONNEY

Pictured is Vickey Bonney when she received a Bluejacket Award. Over her time in the Navy, she received several awards for exemplary service.

PROVIDED BY VICKEY BONNEY

Pictured is the boat crew on board an LCPL, personnel carrier. This photo was taken the day Vickey Bonney arrived and was the last photo before Bonney and the one other girl “invaded their boys club.”

Tune recalls service in Korea

PAM CLIFTON Contributing Writer

Fredericktown resident Gary Tune recalled his experience of serving in the military more than a half century ago.

Tune was drafted into the U.S. Army and began his service in September 1965. He completed basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

He served two years in the military as a chaplain’s clerk. This included being stationed for six months at Fort Campbell and 13 months in Korea.

Tune recalled a time during his service in Korea when an important discovery was made. He explained how there were two valleys leading down from North Korea to Seoul, the only potential for an invasion.

One Saturday, Tune and other soldiers roamed throughout the hills and valley.

“Along each side, we found concrete bunkers and trenches hidden in the brush,” he said. “In case of an invasion, this was the first line of defense to protect Seoul. Although Vietnam was at war, Korea was not but we understood the impact.”

He recalled another story of when a tank had attempted to cross a creek, which was typ ically an easy task. But it was springtime and monsoon sea son. Things had begun to thaw and the creek was somewhat flooded, which caused the tank to get stuck and flood.

“They sent for a tank retriever and it got stuck and flooded,” said Tune. “It was quite a project and lots of chain and two more retrievers to rescue the two machines, which took all day.

“It wasn’t my assignment, so I had to go to my duty station and did not watch all of the rescue.”

Tune served in the military for two years. He said the food was fantastic, especially the steak at Fort Campbell. However, the worst food was the chipped beef on toast, nicknamed “SOS.”

He earned the Good Conduct Medal and completed his service with the rank of SPC 5, E-5.

Tune returned home in July 1967. He soon met his wife Sue Smith who was waiting tables at a truck stop café in Odessa, Texas, where Sue was born and raised. Tune was born about 40 miles from there in Monahans, Texas.

At the time when he met Sue, Tune worked as a truck driver for an oilfield service.

The couple had their first date on Oct. 1, 1967, and married soon after.

“During our early conversations, we learned that both of our sets of parents, as well as our maternal and paternal grandparents were from Coleman, Texas,” said Sue.

A further coincidence was that 30 years later when their daughter Heather met her future husband Tom in Fredericktown, she learned he also had relatives in Coleman, Texas.

Tune’s brother Bill also served in the U.S. Army, from 1957 to 1959. His service in the military included deployment to Germany.

“Serving in the military was a great experience for a country boy who had never traveled,” said Tune.

Pam Clifton is a contributing writer for the Daily Journal

Gary and Sue Tune had their first date on Oct. 1, 1967.

Gary Tune was stationed for basic training at Ft. Polk, La., in 1965.

Gary Tune is shown here at Camp Casey in South Korea in 1967.

Pictured, Gary and Sue Tune celebrate their 40th anniversary.

Family surprises Gary and Sue Tune with a 50th wedding anniversary party.

anniversary this year.