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WEST CENTRAL TRIBUNE
Saturday, November 5, 2022 | D19
Last meeting of Stillwater’s Korean War Last Man’s Club marks end of an era BY MARY DIVINE
I
Pioneer Press
t’s been almost 72 years since Gus MacDonald and Charles Ciesman left the Stillwater Armory on a bitter-cold January day and marched down the hill to the train depot to board a Rock Island Line train. The members of the Minnesota National Guard’s Headquarters Company First Battalion and Heavy Mortar Company, both of the 135th Infantry, had been called up to serve in Korea, but first had to report for training at Camp Rucker in Alabama. “Remember when we got off the train in Alabama? Do you remember what the band was playing?” Ciesman, 90, asked MacDonald, 91, during the annual meeting of the H & H Last Man’s Club on Thursday at the Lowell Inn Event Center in Stillwater. MacDonald said he couldn’t recall. “They were playing ‘I Wish I Was in Dixie,’ ” Ciesman said. “We didn’t wish we were there. We wished we were back in Minnesota.” MacDonald and Ciesman were among the 153 young men from Stillwater who fought in the Korean War. When they returned, they formed the H & H Last Man’s Club — which stood for “Headquarters” and “Heavy.” Now, eight members remain. Six were able to attend the 69th reunion on Thursday, Oct. 13 — the group’s last official gathering. “It’s the end of a tradition,” said Retired Major Gen. Lyle Doerr, who lives in Stillwater. “It’s amazing that it
John Autey / Pioneer Press Members of the H&H Last Man’s Club, from left, Charlie Ciesman, George Seim and Vernon Kumerow raise a toast at the 69th and final meeting of the group at the Lowell Inn in Stillwater on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. The men, all in their early 90s, are among a handful remaining of the 153 Stillwater-area veterans who started the club after their service in the Korean War.
has continued for as long as it has. I’m one of the youngest, and I’m 90. We decided this would be a good time to close it out.”
Tradition dates to 1886 The men who met on Thursday were continuing a tradition that began
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Veterans Day
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in Stillwater in 1886 on the 25th anniversary of the First Battle of Bull Run. Survivors of Company B of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment formed a “Last Man’s Club” that resolved to meet annually until all 34 Civil War veterans had passed away. It is believed to be the first military Last Man organization in the United
States, said Jack Johnson, a local military historian who helped organize Thursday’s event. The “last man” was charged with drinking a toast to his departed comrades. Charles Lockwood earned that honor in 1930. The reunion on Thursday followed the same format as those Civil War reunions: socializing, a meal, a speaker and a ritual of remembrance for those deceased. A group of World War I veterans from Stillwater in 1932 formed the Last Buddies Bully Beef Club, another Last Man organization. That group’s “last man” was Frank Manning, a former typesetter for the Stillwater Gazette, who died in 1998 at the age of 101. The father of George Seim Jr., a member of the H & H Last Man’s Club, was a member of the Last Buddies Bully Beef Club, which was named for the canned rationed beef the soldiers received. “They always brought a can with them to their reunions, but nobody ate it,” said Seim, 92, of Oakdale. During World War II, Stillwater’s two National Guard companies — Company A and Company D of the First Battalion, 135th Infantry — fought together in North Africa and Italy with the 34th “Red Bull” Infantry Division. A year after returning home, they formed the A & D Last Man’s Club, with 180 members.
LAST MANS CLUB: Page D22
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