Long time Brighton resident leads Whoopee Days Parade

Wesley Mullikin knows the town of Brighton like the back of his hand. Mullikin has lived there his whole life, save his time in the military during the Second World War. Mullikin was rewarded for his longevity and his loyalty to the town earlier this month when he was named the Grand Marshal of the 101

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Whoopee Days Parade.

Mullikin was born in Brighton in 1925. He grew up in a house just one block away from where he lives now on West Washington Street. At the age of 17, Mullikin signed up for the United States Navy, and was told he had to wait until he was 18. Mullikin enlisted in the Navy in November 1943.

When asked if he wanted to join the military, Mullikin responded, ?Everybody had to go.?

Mullikin trained at a naval boot camp in Farragut, Idaho.

?When I was at the camp, there was snow everywhere,? said Mullikin. ?There was snow as high as this house.?

Mullikin had his sights set on joining the Navy Air Corps. He wanted to be a radio operator in an airplane. However, Uncle Sam had other plans for the Brighton native. The military shipped Mullikin to a camp near Oceanside, Calif., where he learned about ?ship to shore? communications. Mullikin said it wasn?t something he wanted to do, but he didn?t have much of a choice in the matter.

From California Mullikin was sent to the island of Tinian in the South Pacific. Tinian was in Japanese hands from the end of World War I until the Allied invasion in late July 1944. Mullikin arrived on Tinian in the fall of 1944. He remembers that his sleeping quarters consisted of a tent with sandbags around the outside for walls. The island is 40 square miles in area. Its six runways made it the busiest airbase of the war. A few months after landing on Tinian, Mullikin was moved to the island of Saipan, about four miles north of Tinian.

When Mullikin was sent to the South Pacific, he assumed he would work on a ship.

?They sent me to a naval hospital in Saipan where they made a cook out of me,? said Mullikin. ?I had no experience. I started from scratch. The first thing they told me was that I was the head cook.?

Mullikin spent a combined 18 months on Tinian and Saipan. When not in the kitchen, Mullikin spent his free time swimming in the ocean and watching movies at the theater.

He continued to cook at the naval hospital well after the war, which ended in August 1945. By early 1946, Mullikin was ready to leave the island.

?I was getting homesick,? he said. ?When I joined the Navy, I thought I would be in it for 20 years. But I got sick of it and wanted to go back home.?

He was discharged in April 1946. He moved back to Brighton where he opened a car salvage yard. He married Leila Brown in 1948 and together the couple had three children: Pamela, Robert and Ruth Ann.

He isn?t positive, but Mullikin is pretty sure he is the oldest veteran in Brighton, and perhaps the resident who has lived in the town the longest. Over nearly nine decades, he has noticed a change or two to the town he calls home.

?At one time in the 1930s, we had four grocery stores, if you can believe that,? said Mullikin. ?There used to be six or seven gas pumps. Most of them were hand pumps.?

A few weeks ago he was visiting his daughter Pamela in Cedar Rapids when she received a phone call. To her surprise, the phone was for Mullikin. He learned he would receive one of the most prestigious honors that can be bestowed on a Brightonian ? he was named the Grand Marshal of the Whoopee Days Parade.

The Whoopee Days Parade was Saturday, June 18. Mullikin rode in a convertible with his two daughters, who threw out candy while he waved. The convertible belongs to Mullikin?s long-time friend Walter Pacha. Mullikin said he was thrilled to be recognized in that way and was glad he got to spend the day with his friends and family.