| Local vets set to board Honor Flight |
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| Written by PETER KUEBECK Sentinel Staff Writer | ||||
| Tuesday, 22 May 2012 09:22 | ||||
"For a young guy, it really exposed me to a lot about life," Bowling Green resident Harold Richmond, a 1949 graduate of Bowling Green State University, said of his service. Drafted in the waning days of World War II, he was initially assigned to the field artillery, doing fire direction - "that's the center where you do all the firing to shoot a bomb 14 miles," he commented. "In other words, it's the long guns." That wasn't the end of his education however. While some of his comrades in training were sent overseas, others - Richmond included - were sent to Ft. Reilly, Kan., a cavalry post. There he learned to drive trains of pack mules, which were used for transportation in the China-Burma-India region. However, again due to the fact that the war was ending, Richmond found himself again in a different training school after that - tank school. "So I had a pretty good time while I was in the service, really," he said. "And then they were looking for things to keep us busy, and I had some courses in demolition" and also in dog training. Richmond is most looking forward to "the camaraderie with the other guys" for his Honor Flight trip. "I'm sure some of them will want to talk, and see what's going on. And I lost a friend that I wouldn't mind seeing his name up on the (monument's) wall."
Perrysburg resident Richard Hazle entered the Air Force in 1944 after he graduated from high school in Ionia, Mich. "I'd always intended to fly," he said. After joining up he went into a college training program at the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, for nine months, taking an intensive series of classes. "We were taking anywhere from 22 to 26 credits," he said, in addition to military and physical training. Most regular students took fewer than 20 credits. Some of the trainees simply could not keep up with the schedule and dropped out. "I mean, it was military," he emphasized, "marched to class." After that he was sent to the Great Lakes Naval Station in Chicago, and then to basic training in Biloxi, Miss. He was later assigned to a detail unloading railroad cars and trucks for cold storage, eventually attaining a management role. He was mustered out late in 1945 after 18 months in the service. "I did serve a benefit down there, but I look at what I did as a minor situation." While Hazle has seen the World War II memorial before, he has not seen many of the other monuments on the itinerary. "So I'm interested to see what's going on." The trip will be "something I've never done before, I'm going to enjoy it. It will be lovely and the ability to walk and do things like this is important for me." |
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| Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 May 2012 09:26 |
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