Central New York veterans well into their 80’s and 90’s seem to have no trouble recalling their service during World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam. Dozens of them were on a final mission recently, the Syracuse Honor Flight to Washington to see the memorials and monuments in their honor that stirred those memories.
Their roles ranged from combat and supply to medic and draftsman. Petty Officer Second Class James Kerlin, Jr. of Nedrow served in the navy during world war two on the USS Shangri La. During the stop at the World War II Memorial, he told us the memories came flooding back on the plane trip to D.C.
”I would get on the aisle and this guy was getting out of his wheel chair, and I looked at his hat, ‘USS Wisconsin.’ He was one of our escort ships in the war! I couldn’t believe I saw the Wisconsin!”
Private First Class Bill Cosilmon of Hastings knew what Kerlin and others were enduring halfway across the world before he entered the service himself.
“I was a young teenager and I followed the news - radio, newspapers - and all these battles I remember like it was yesterday. My brother-in-law, he was in the Battle of the Bulge back here. Of course he ended up in Germany, naturally. I remember all the air raids and stuff like that.”
Cosilmon began in the army in the fall of 1946 on occupation duty in Japan. He came home a year and a half later and was called back for the Korean War. More than half the veterans on the Honor Flight were from that conflict. James Maloney of Mattydale didn’t see combat, but was part of a corps that brought soldiers and supplies to the front lines. He shared his story with parks service volunteer Melanie Grant in front of the Korean War Memorial wall.
“It’s mostly driving a truck and knowing where to go. They come pretty handy. I’m sure soldier’s up there fighting and he walks back and there’s nothing there. I mean, there has to be something there for this man. And that’s what it is, food and supplies and ammunition. It takes 70% of the army, I think, to take care of the 30% to make sure, but that was a disaster place to be.
Staff Sergeant Ed Curley of Camden had two tours of duty in Korea, serving as a pole climber and cable splicer with the 532nd Signal Company. He says learning the language was critical to connect with the Korean people.
“The best thing was if we needed something, if we wanted to go somewhere, I would go to the house. You gotta remember, we’re soldiers, we have guns, you know? And I would go and say in Korean, ‘Grandfather, grandmother,’ who are very special in the Korean house, ‘May I sit on your porch?’”
Curley says about half of the men he worked with were killed in Korea. Some of their remains might have come through the laboratory of the Central Identification Unit in Japan where Corporal Joseph Rabozzi worked for nearly two years. He says they received about 1,600 unknown remains exhumed from cemeteries in North Korea.
“Our job was to make sure that all those remains were physically identified, who they were. Making darn sure that they were the people that we thought they were so that they could be sent home to their families, because their families didn’t know where they were," Rabozzi said, getting choked up.
He says he was proud they were able to identify close to 700 soldiers, and 400 were sent back to the U.S. While Rabozzi was in the lab, Army Private Peg Gschwender was working in the hospital as a medic. Not in Korea, but in Germany.
“A lot of the soldiers coming over were sick from being in the ship so long. Then there were the people going home: The soldiers had married German girls had babies, and so we had to make sure they all had their shots and felt good to get on the ship.”
Why Germany? Gschwender says she had her choice of where she wanted to go because she did well in school.
“My brother was already in Germany. He was in the Air Force… Yeah, I saw him. It was not a good thing. He was older than me and he used to boss me around a little bit, you know, if he saw me out there, dancing and drinking,” Gschwender said, laughing.
For some, serving during World War II and Korea wasn’t on the front lines or even in support roles. Airman First Class Gerry Laude was a draftsman in the communication squadron stationed at a war room in Morocco during the Korean War.
“You couldn't tell what was going in there...a lot of top secret stuff. We did have big bases over there that people didn't even know were there. They had one base there where most of us flew in and out of, which was not too far from Casablanca.”
Laude acknowledges he was fortunate to have an 8 to 5 job in headquarters that gave him a little more freedom to explore North Africa.
“I had a motorcycle over there and I would go up into the Atlas Mountains and all around. It was just, if you wanted to learn there was a great experience in just going around and seeing everything – the way the people lived. I just enjoyed my service. Of course, you do a lot of complaining, but I had it real good where I was stationed.”
For others, though, the memories stirred up by the memorials aren’t always pleasant. One of the only Vietnam War veterans on the Honor Flight was Air Force Major Bob Voelker of Rome who served from 1954 to 1974. This was his first time visiting the newer Air Force monument, but has been to the Vietnam Memorial wall several times.
“It brings back the memory of how useless that war was, as far as I’m concerned. It was a political war run in Washington D.C. by Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert S. McNamara.”
But 40 plus years ago, the decorated airman says that wasn’t necessarily his perspective.
“At the time, I was doing my job to the best of my ability and, you know, I wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking about my family at home: four children and a wife taking care of them all by herself.”
Voelker logged 8,200 hours in the air with the Strategic Air Command, refueling planes in the air. He also supported top secret missions fueling spy planes for the CIA.
For the veterans on the Honor Flight, the trip to Washington served as a venue to give us just a brief glimpse into their service to their country. 96-year-old Louis Iauco of Jamesville knows he’s one of the lucky ones from World War II to still be able to tell his story, literally.
“I was hospitalized in Simpleville, Holland. I had a concussion and I lost my voice. I made a promise to myself that I’m never going to shut up because it my reoccur,” Iauco said, laughing.
Almost 80 veterans made the trip to Washington on the most recent Syracuse Honor Flight. The Syracuse Branch has complete 9 of these missions since 2012. More information about Honor Flight Syracuse can be found at honorflightsyracuse.org. Information about the Honor Flight network as a whole can be found at honorflight.org.
