Advertisement
Six decades later, they soon will be among the first group of veterans honored for their service through a new regional effort.
 |
Brothers and WWII veterans Herman Thiede, 103, and Frederick Thiede, 88, are headed to Washington D.C. to see the WWII Memorial. PETER THOMSON photo |
The brothers, ages 88 and 103, will be on Freedom Honor Flight Inc.’s first trip Oct. 8 to take area veterans to see the National World War II Memorial and other memorials in Washington, D.C.
A chartered Boeing 757 will leave La Crosse early that morning with 110 veterans, 55 guardians, two physicians from Franciscan Skemp and Gundersen Lutheran medical centers and four paramedics from Tri-State Ambulance. The group will return to La Crosse late that night.
Frederick has visited Washington twice. But both trips were years before construction of the memorial, which was dedicated in 2004.
He is happy the memorial finally was built. “It should have been done many years ago,” said Frederick, who thinks he knows a half-dozen veterans who will be on the Oct. 8 journey.
He is grateful to the people and businesses who have donated money toward the estimated $115,000 cost of the trip, so that veterans can make the journey at no cost. They will be assisted on the trip by volunteers, called guardians, who each pay their own way.
“I think I’ll make it OK,” Frederick said of the long day. “You can always sleep on the plane.”
Herman said he, too, will be happy to see the National World War II Memorial for the first time.
“That’s truly special — you and your brother will be on this trip together,” his daughter, Diane Niebuhr of Holmen, told Herman when a reporter visited him at the nursing home where he lives. She will accompany Herman on the trip as a guardian.
“I am so excited and very touched at how people have gone above and beyond in getting this trip together,” Niebuhr said. She and her sister, Kathleen Williams of Ocala, Fla., suggested that their father make the journey.
Herman’s wife, Charlotte, passed away in 1978. He retired in 1970 after 23 years with the LaCrosse Rubber Mills Co.
Five of the 13 Thiede siblings served in World War II, Frederick said. The siblings grew up on a farm near Frazee, Minn. Frederick and Herman moved to the La Crosse area after World War II, after visiting a sister who already had moved to the area.
Frederick worked at the Allis-Chalmers factory in La Crosse for several years before being laid off in 1956. Then he became a La Crosse School District custodian, a job he retired from in 1984. He and his wife, Angeline, have four children.
During the war, he took care of patients after operations or during illnesses, during fighting in New Guinea and the Philippines. Immediately after the war, his unit spent a few months in occupied Japan before returning to the U.S.
“You saw everything — arms off, legs off, a stomach blown out,” Frederick said of his days working in hospital tents.
Occasionally, injured Japanese soldiers were taken to his hospital.
“What are you going to do?” Frederick asked. “You had to take care of them, like the rest. Of course, they were called quite a few different names.”
In July, Freedom Honor Flight announced it would charter an airplane to take veterans to see the memorial and others Oct. 8. It is a new La Crosse-based affiliate of the national Honor Flight Network.
More than 300 veterans have applied so far, Freedom Honor President Charles Hanson said last week. Top priority goes to World War II veterans and to terminally ill veterans.
“We’re hoping ongoing fundraising will allow us to have another flight, which we are tentatively planning for June,” Hanson said. Donations can be made at Kwik Trip stores during September or online at www.freedomhonorflight.org.
Freedom Honor officials hope to organize two trips a year to Washington.
About the World War II memorial
WHAT: Construction began in 2001 on the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., and it was dedicated in May 2004. It became part of the National Park System in November 2004.
WHERE: The memorial is between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
WHO: It honors the 16 million people who served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II, the more than 400,000 who died, and the millions who supported the war effort from home.
MORE INFO: For more information, visit www.wwiimemorial.com.
