Fairfield’s Don Kramer receives Quilt of Valor

FAIRFIELD – Fairfield resident Don Kramer was honored for his military service with a Quilt of Valor on May 28.

The ceremony was held at Addington Place of Fairfield, and the honor came as a complete surprise to Kramer. Kramer is a resident of The Oaks Assisted Living, but he goes to Addington Place on a regular basis to socialize with former school teachers and staff through the Retired Teachers Association.

He had been told that the group was going to host a program on the police department’s new dog, which was true. But nobody told him that he was also going to receive a Quilt of Valor, recognizing his two years of active duty and four years of reserve service in the U.S. Army.

“It was a nice surprise,” Kramer said about receiving the quilt. “I thought we were going there for some other program, but it ended up that I was the program.”

Kramer grew up in Burlington and joined the U.S. Army at age 21 after graduating from Iowa State Teacher’s College, now UNI, with a bachelor’s degree in art education. Kramer said he and a buddy decided they should join the military before they were drafted.

Kramer was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, the very same time that music star Elvis Presley was there, though the two never met because they were in different platoons. Kramer was a teletype operator, and because of his background in art, the Army put him in charge of making signs for the base. Some guys would ask him to put their girlfriend’s name on the door of their jeep. Near the end of his service, Kramer became a jeep driver for a first lieutenant, and he had to keep the jeep “spic and span.” He was also in charge of waking up the lieutenant every morning.

After leaving the service, Kramer got a job as an art teacher in the Fairfield school district. He moved to Fairfield and has lived here ever since, now about to celebrate his 91 st birthday on July 16. Kramer taught in public schools for 24 years, then at Iowa Wesleyan for 10 years.

Kramer said he learned a lot from his time in the Army and made a lot of friends there. He said it was also through the Army that he learned how to “hurry up and wait.” He used to get together with his Army buddies over the summers in Chicago, though unfortunately he’s lost track of them all.

Kramer said he’s been asked to join Veterans of Foreign Wars several times, though he hasn’t because he didn’t serve overseas.

“Sometimes I feel like I didn’t do as much for our country because I wasn’t ordered to fight in a war, but I didn’t want to, either,” he said.

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com