OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — More than 100 veterans from WWII, Korean War and Vietnam War, as well as one Gulf War-era veteran and three peace-time veterans, will be honored Tuesday, November 11, by more than 300 residents of Tallgrass Creek’s retirement community.
The Veterans Day program will be held from 1 p.m. — 2 p.m. in the community’s Blue Sky Restaurant, located 13800 Metcalf Avenue in Overland Park, Kan.
The veterans include an Army Second Lieutenant who survived the Battle of the Bulge, an Army infantryman who fought in the battles of Leyte and Manila, a Marine paratrooper who fought in the Pacific Theater, an Army nurse who had her boots on the ground in Vietnam, and two Army Air Corps pilots who flew numerous bombing missions from England over Europe. A civilian who was at age 11 was held in a Japanese prison camp on the Philippines will also be honored.
The event is sponsored by volunteers of the Tallgrass Creek Chorale, a 42-member group of men and women who will sing patriotic songs and a military service hymn medley.
A multi-media presentation of photographs of all veterans in their respective military uniforms, and with their dates of service noted, will be shown. The veterans will share stories of their experiences.
The “Pledge of Allegiance” will be said and the poem “In Flanders Field” will be read in observance of the 100th anniversary of WWI, the war for which the first Veterans Day – then known as Armistice Day – was held.
“Every veteran has done an extremely important job to keep our nation safe,” said Jerry Brazil, an Army infantryman during the Vietnam War era who has expedited Honor Flights for eight veterans in the past year from Kansas City to the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C. “We should always thank them.”
