Veterans honored at school, memorial and dinner

    Washington?s veterans were honored at a number of events in the city Wednesday afternoon and evening. Lincoln Elementary School held an assembly in the afternoon to listen to Wendel Guy and Richard Goodall from the American Legion speak about Veterans Day. Guy and Goodall presented the school with 15 American flags that will be hung in the school?s classrooms.

    Later in the afternoon, the All-Veterans Memorial Park at Orchard Hill was dedicated with speeches from veterans and veteran supporters along with music from the high school band. The Iowa National Guard Readiness Center hosted a veterans? dinner in the evening that featured a speech by Commander Marlin Tillman, the highest-ranking Legionnaire in Iowa.

    Guy and Goodall took questions from the students at the elementary school after speaking briefly about their time in the service. A number of the students said they had grandparents who served in the military.

    Guy asked one of the students, ?Will you do something for me the next time you see your grandfather? Tell him, ?Thank you, grandpa, for your service to the United States of America.? He might cry, but you should do it anyway.?

    Staff Sergeant Rob Radosevich, who is currently serving in the Iowa National Guard, told the students about his experience in the military. Radosevich entered the military in 1983 and served during the Gulf War before retiring from the service. Radosevich re-enlisted in the National Guard in 2004. He said that he had just returned from a peace-keeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula in eastern Egypt.

    Radosevich told the students that the National Guard does a great deal of work within the United States. He said that the National Guard was active during the 2008 floods that affected Cedar Rapids. 

    Radosevich remarked, ?I like the National Guard because I can help people I live next to and also serve my country.?  

    The Memorial Park Dedication at Orchard Hill was attended by nearly 150 people. The memorial includes several marble tablets which will display the names of veterans who have passed away. There are seven flags that surround the memorial, each one featuring a different branch of the military, including a flag for soldiers who are Prisoners of War (POW).

    The high school band played the Star-Spangled Banner to begin the event and Mayor Sandra Johnson followed by reading a poem. Dan McClure, who served in the military for 43 years, spoke about how the idea for the memorial began.

    McClure said that after the World War II veterans returned home, they wanted to commemorate their fallen comrades.

    ?They came back with a dream in their hearts,? said McClure. ?That dream is now behind me.?

    McClure told the crowd that a veteran he knows said there were such great memorials in Washington, D.C., but that he was getting too old and too sick to visit them.

For the full story, see the Nov. 12 edition of The Washington Evening Journal