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WORLD WAR II VETERANS MAKE EMOTIONAL TRIP -- Charity

helps aging soldiers visit military landmarks in Nation's Capitol.

A veteran visiting from Michigan pauses in front of the National World War II Memorial's Freedom Wall. The wall's 4,000 gold stars commemorate the more than 400,000 Americans who died in the war.

For more about World War II veterans, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
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Story here... http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs
.dll/article?AID=/20071105/METRO/711050350/1409/METRO

Story below: 

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WWII vets make emotional trip

Royal Oak charity helps aging soldiers visit military landmarks

Francis X. Donnelly
The Detroit News

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Listening to taps and surrounded by 300,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery, a group of World War II veterans from Michigan reflected on their remaining days Saturday.

They had come to Washington as part of a feverish drive by a Royal Oak charity to allow vets to visit several military landmarks before they die.

The reason for the urgency is clear.

Death, which once stalked them half a world away, has returned six decades later. The enemy now is time, as relentless as the German mortars that greeted them on the beaches of France.

Less than a week before Veterans Day, they don't have many holidays left.

"These twilight years aren't what they're cracked up to be," said Joe Zikewich, 83, a Navy radio operator from Lake Orion who nearly died when a Japanese plane intentionally crashed into his aircraft carrier, killing 47 men.

Each day, 1,025 Americans who fought in World War II die, according to the federal Department of Veterans Affairs. Each year, nearly as many veterans die as the number who perished in the war, 407,000.

Of the 16 million who fought, 3.2 million are left.

As the Greatest Generation slips away, 80 Michiganians from that era flew to Washington to recall what it was like.

It was a whirlwind day, full of memory and loss, pride and regret, tears and smiles.

And photos, lots of photos.

"Ooh, wow, yikes," Bob Nagel, 81, a destroyer machinist from Royal Oak, said after spying one monument and snapping a picture.

The Royal Oak charity, Honor Flight Michigan, is one of several in the United States that sprang up after construction of the National World War II Memorial in 2004.

Through private donations, they allow the veterans to visit the long-awaited monument in Washington.

So far, Honor Flight has flown 415 Michigan vets on eight flights. The state has 6,000 residents who fought in World War II.

The organization is just a year old but already has had several veterans pass away while on the waiting list, said volunteer Rick Sage, who led Saturday's trip.
A warm welcome

The grueling 17-hour day began at 3 a.m. as the veterans mounted buses in Royal Oak that would take them to Detroit Metro Airport.

The former soldiers and sailors, marines and airmen, wore VFW hats and military caps over white-haired or balding pates.

Most of the aging warriors were in their 80s. Five were in their 90s. One was 96.

The Northwest Airlines red-eye was delayed 25 minutes for the boarding process.

"That was the last wheelchair, right, hon?" asked a Northwest attendant.

Once in the air, one vet told Jack Benny jokes. Another took out a disposable camera provided by Honor Flight and, with trembling hands, took photos outside the plane window.

At Reagan National Airport in Washington, they were met with applause by travelers and airport staff.

The warm welcome continued on the bus taking them to the World War II monument.

The bus driver, Huey Blizzard, 59, a 30-year vet who did three tours in Vietnam, thanked them for their sacrifice.

"I was fighting for nothing but the rice, but you were fighting for the survival of a country," he said over the bus intercom.

The World War II memorial also was a thank-you to the vets, a football field-sized tribute to what they accomplished barely out of their teens.

Several doubted they would ever see it. The monument was delayed 17 years during wrangling over its site, design and construction. By the time it was built, vets were in their declining years.

At the memorial, most of the group ambled over to the Michigan pillar, one of 56 that form a semi-circle around a plaza and pool. The spires bear the names of U.S. states and territories.

Gazing at the flattened stone pillar, which contains a sculpted bronze wreath on the front and back, the Michiganians dusted off memories that were over 60 years old.

Stanley Dierwa, 90, of Warren was a combat battalion supplier who was among the Allied forces who stormed Normandy on D-Day. He recalled being in water up to his neck, bullets whizzing by, a smashed lifeboat and four dead soldiers floating nearby.

"You better believe it was scary," he said.

For some vets, the monument crystallized what they had done for their country. But others said it was nothing special, that back then, everybody went to war.

The bigger sacrifice, they said, was made by the brethren who went overseas and never came back.
Bob Dole greets veterans

The visit to the monument Saturday was enlivened by the arrival of a fellow World War II vet -- Bob Dole.

Dole, the retired senator from Kansas, often greets Honor Flight visitors to the memorial, of which he co-chaired the funding.

With a tan and dyed hair, Dole looked younger than his 84 years. He wore only a pin-striped suit on the cold, windy day but appeared to be enjoying himself, joking with vets and encouraging them to take photo after photo.

"Politics? I'm out of politics," he smilingly told one woman.

Posing for still another picture with a World War II vet and his son, he told the younger man: "You're proud of this guy, right? If it wasn't for him, you would be speaking German today."

The Michigan group returned to the bus for a trip to Arlington National Cemetery.

If the World War II monument reminded them of their youth, the cemetery made them feel old as they drove past endless rows of plain white grave markers.

To Ralph Reid, it felt like the Grim Reaper was tapping him on the shoulder.

"When I told someone a thousand of us were dying a day, he looked at me like I was an idiot," said Reid, 83, a vet from Waterford. "He said, 'Don't you mean one thousand a year?' "

The Michiganians, who once belonged to the strongest military force in the world, were reduced to a battery of bifocals and hearing aides, canes and motorized scooters.

At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, their eight wheelchairs formed a straight line, like tanks in an attack formation.

After the changing of the guard, dual wreath-laying ceremonies were held at the tomb.

First were four eighth-graders from Essexville, Mich., near Bay City. Then came four Michigan vets, who were nearly seven times older than the students.

One of the vets, Duane Zemper, 87, of Howell, clutching a metal cane, was helped by another elderly vet as he climbed the tomb's stairs after the ceremony.

"It was kind of shaky," he said about the experience. "I'm not as big and sturdy as I used to be."

You can reach Francis X. Donnelly at (313) 223-4186 or fdonnelly@detnews.com.

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Larry Scott  --

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