Preparing for a mission of honor
Veterans ready for flight to Washington
- Messenger photo by Bill Shea <br> Chuck Nourse, center, a Marine Corps veteran from Estherville, talks with Army veterans Everett Houge, left, of Superior, and Don Bisgaard, of Estherville, during the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight banquet Wednesday evening at the Webster County Fairgrounds. Nourse will be celebrating his 93rd birthday when he goes on the May 10 flight to Washington, D.C.
-Messenger photo by Bill Shea <br> Greg Heckard, left, of Jackson, Minnesota, sits with his father, John Heckard, of Estherville, Wednesday evening at the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight banquet. John Heckard, a Navy veteran, will be a passenger on the May 10 Honor Flight, while Greg Heckard, an Army veteran, will be going on the flight as a volunteer to help veterans who use wheelchairs.
-Messenger photo by Bill Shea <br>
- Messenger photo by Bill Shea <br> Chuck Nourse, center, a Marine Corps veteran from Estherville, talks with Army veterans Everett Houge, left, of Superior, and Don Bisgaard, of Estherville, during the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight banquet Wednesday evening at the Webster County Fairgrounds. Nourse will be celebrating his 93rd birthday when he goes on the May 10 flight to Washington, D.C.
-Messenger photo by Bill Shea <br> Greg Heckard, left, of Jackson, Minnesota, sits with his father, John Heckard, of Estherville, Wednesday evening at the Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight banquet. John Heckard, a Navy veteran, will be a passenger on the May 10 Honor Flight, while Greg Heckard, an Army veteran, will be going on the flight as a volunteer to help veterans who use wheelchairs.
-Messenger photo by Bill Shea <br>
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Chuck Nourse, of Estherville, will mark his 93rd birthday in a very memorable way next week.
The Marine Corps veteran's birthday is next Wednesday, and he will spend the day touring the nation's war memorials in Washington, D.C., during the 23rd Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight.
The Honor Flight takes area veterans on a one-day trip from Fort Dodge Regional Airport to the nation's capital and back. The veterans who are going on the trip gathered with their families for a banquet at the Webster County Fairgrounds Wednesday evening.
Nourse served in the Marine Corps from 1951 to 1953. Although he was in the service during the Korean War, he was never sent to South Korea. He was stationed at Camp Pendleton, California.
Nourse said he is, however, looking forward to seeing the Korean War Veterans Memorial.
He will not be the oldest veteran on the flight. That distinction goes to 102-year-old Dr. Leo Samson, of Ida Grove.
Samson was a Navy dentist in 1945, working in California. He started in Camp Shoemaker.
"Theoretically, we were checking every sailor that was going to be on a ship in the Pacific," he said. "We did all the work that they needed."
He said dentists at the camp worked in two shifts, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. or 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., because there were so many patients to treat. He was later transferred to Fort Ord, where he worked for 10 months doing general dentistry.
He was a Naval Reserve officer from 1945 to 1985. But his military career started in the Army. He said when he was a dental student at Creighton University, in Omaha, Nebraska, he got a notice from the Iowa draft board informing him that he had been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve.
Some time after that, he said, he got a letter from the Army stating that if he resigned his commission as an officer, he could be in a specialized training program that would pay for his education. So he quit being a lieutenant. He became a private first class. The Army then paid for his schooling and paid him a $21 per month salary. He said in 1944, a $21 a month salary could buy a lot of good steak dinners in Omaha.
He had some communication with the Navy while he was a private first class and as a result, the Navy commissioned him as lieutenant junior grade and ordered him to California.
After World War II ended, he practiced dentistry in Ida Grove for 40 years.
Terry Lovett, also of Ida Grove, had a kind of different entry into active duty service as well.
He was a member of an Iowa Army National Guard unit that was called to active duty in 1969 and sent to Fort Carson, Colorado. There, he and four other members of his unit were informed that they were going to Vietnam. There he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. He said that was an air assault unit, but added 'we did a lot of ground pounding, too."
Lovett said the good things he has heard about Honor Flight from veterans inspired him to go on the upcoming trip.
"I've heard guys talk about going on it," he said. "I am looking forward to just going, being with other veterans."
Don Bisgaard, an Army veteran from Estherville, said the positive comments from other veterans prompted him to go on the flight.
"I just heard things from other people who have been on them and they said 'you've got to go,''' he said.
Bisgaard served in the Army from 1955 to 1957. He started working with artillery and later moved to guided missiles.
He was surprised to learn during the banquet that he had been selected to be a team leader on the flight. He joked that he would have to make sure veterans don't wander off in Washington.
Everett Houge, of Superior, served in the Army's 1st Cavalry Division from 1965 to 1967.
"Everybody told me I need to," he said when asked what prompted him to go on the Honor Flight.
He contrasted that with his induction into military service.
"Uncle Sam asked me to go," he said, "I got a notice saying my friends and neighbors on the selective service board had selected me for military training. I didn't know I had friends and neighbors."
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The 23rd Brushy Creek Area Honor Flight will leave Fort Dodge Regional Airport at around 6 a.m. Wednesday and travel to Dulles International Airport in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
There, the veterans will board buses that will take them to visit the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the United States Navy Memorial, the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, and the Air Force Memorial.
The flight will return to Fort Dodge at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday.