President Randy Smith called the meeting to order, making a quick review of the agenda and asking David Dix to kick off our meeting with a patriotic song, David played “My Country Tis of Thee” and Randy led the Pledge of Allegiance. Sue Hetrick followed with the Invocation.
President Randy asked if there were any guests to be introduced and seeing none, he welcomed our newest inducted members Phil Lanier and Ben Wolford
President Randy asked if there were any announcements:
Will Underwood thanked everyone who helped Saturday for the District 4-Way Speech Contest that our club hosted. Noting that in spite of the challenge of using ZOOM, the contest went very well. Five made it to the finals. He especially thanked all the Rotarians, predominately from our club who served as judges and timers, and our committee, who spent countless hours in organizing the contest. He singled out Rachel Kerns for her work organizing the judges and Roger Kramer for all of his technical assistance throughout the day.
Larry Lohman, reminded our club about the District Conference being held April 22, 23,& 24. He encouraged all members to consider attending some or all of the conference. Sign-up is online at the District website. Of special note is that on Thursday, Kent Rotarian Walt Strawman will be honored. In addition, our club will receive a special citation for 100 years of service. Please consider attending via ZOOM.
Kathy Myers, on behalf of Todd Kamenash, announced a reminder for the food drive competition our club is having with the Stow club. Our effort is to donate as many small cereal boxes as we can. If you want to participate, you can do it by dropping off your donated boxes on the dates listed in this bulletin at 2121 Brady Lake Road or go online and place an order.
Carol Crimi announced that the Foundation would be meeting tonight and considering a variety of proposals for funding. She reminded members that they can sponsor
100th Anniversary Moment
Randy Smith filled in for Jim Myers, who was celebrating his 90th birthday and 66th wedding anniversary with his family out-of-town! We wish him congratulations! He did find time to find a unique story about our Club for Randy to present. Read about it in our eBulletin.
Program
Will Underwood introduced presenter of the program. Rona Simmons. Rona is the daughter of a World War II fighter pilot and an author of historical fiction. She has written a variety of books, as well as smaller articles for various publications. Her most recent book, “The Other Veterans of World War II: Stories From Behind the Front Lines” was the focus of her presentation.
She started by pointing out that the majority of World War II stories revolve around the fighting soldiers. She remembers how her father would not talk about his experiences as a fighter pilot and only suggested he was just doing his job. She found this to be true in many families, where the veterans would say things like they “didn’t do anything special.” This was especially true for the returning service men and women who were in the military, not fighting, yet did extraordinary things in support of the war effort.
Rona sought out any of these veterans who still survived to tell their stories. This became the impetus for the book. Using a variety of sources over a two-year period she was able to interview 19 out of the 16 million who had served during the war. Their stories are highlighted in the book and she gave us some examples:
-Pete Peterson who served in the Quartermaster Corps and was responsible for retrieving the dead from the field of battle, identifying them, and cataloging where they were buried. He was credited with creating massive cemeteries throughout Europe and keeping specific records for each grave.
-Louis Thompson, who didn’t want to go to the military, but was drafted. He was sent to rebuild the Lido Road as a vital supply line in horrible conditions. He volunteered to be a C-147 “Rider” not knowing that his job would be to push supplies out of the plane, under enemy fire at times, and go back to pick up more. He ended up being one of the most highly decorated WWII veterans from Georgia.
She ended her presentation noting that 5 of the 19 are still alive and have become great friends.
Opening for questions, Doug Fuller asked what was at the core of their reluctance in talking about their service. Rona indicated that they didn’t feel they were doing anything special and just saw it as a job. She noted most came home and tried to pick up where they were before they went to military service. She did say if you can get them talking, they have many stories to tell. Laing Kennedy was interested in the total time it took for her to assemble all the information (3 years) and write her book.
Responder
Tom Tadsen responded, introducing himself as a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel who had enlisted 37 years earlier as a buck private. Over the years of his service, he found that the many support personnel Rona described in her book were invaluable to the Army and all of the military services in accomplishing their mission. Those “little people” were the gears that kept the war machine running smoothly during World War II, as she vividly described in her outstanding presentation.--
