4 local veterans soar on Honor Flight

By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

November 07, 2009 10:39 pm

— Anzio, Italy. That was the worst. Ninety days hunkering down in a swamp, living in a foxhole, except for when the freshly wounded arrived.
A hundred new casualties every night, amputation after amputation, wound after wound. There was no to end to the horrors born of truculent warfare.
Of the 10 World War II campaigns Ellsworth R. Marteeny of Conneaut experienced, Anzio is the one he remembers most.
From Algeria-French Morocco to Central Europe, he served with the 7th Army, 3rd Division. When they landed on Africa, they were 10,000 strong. When they left Austria at the end of the conflict, their numbers had been whittled to 600.
So many were lost at Anzio south of Rome that Marteeny, 94, says he never bothered to make friends with the fresh recruits.
“We’d get new recruits on one day, and the next day I’d be patching them up,” says Marteeny, who was a surgical technician. “I never got attached to any one.”
Marteeny received two purple hearts with oak leaf clusters, eight bronze stars and numerous other medals. On Oct. 28, he and more than three dozen other servicemen and women from the Greatest Generation received another honor: an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C., the Honor Flight.
Initially conceived by Earl Morse, a physician assistant and retired U.S. Air Force captain, the Honor Flight’s purpose is to fly veterans to Washington to visit the memorials that honor their sacrifices. The nonprofit organization raises the money to provide the transportation, meals and tours at no charge to the vets, who fly to the nation’s capital on commercial aircraft.
The Oct. 28 flight out of Cleveland-Hopkins was organized by Joe Benedict, director of flight operations for the Honor Flight Cleveland, who says they have taken approximately 1,500 northeast Ohio veterans to Washington, D.C., since the program began here three years ago. The typical flight has 70 veterans plus guardians, and costs $21,000.
Honor Flight raises the money through donations, most of it coming from individuals and veterans organizations. Priority is given to the oldest veterans of World War II. Terminally ill Korean and Vietnam vets are also given priority.
While Honor Flight Cleveland usually has a waiting list of several hundred veterans, the list is quite small these days, and Benedict urges veterans to go online and apply at www.honorflightcleveland.com. The trips will resume in April 2010.
Four veterans from Ashtabula County — Marteeny of Conneaut, Captain Buck of Geneva, and Thomas Andolsek and Charles Devereaux of Ashtabula — made the final trip out of Cleveland for this year. Nick Kozak of Ashtabula Township also qualified for the flight but could not make it because of medical issues.
Hazel Phillips, Marteeny’s daughter, accompanied him. Charles Devereaux was accompanied by daughter Mary Beth Dixon, and Buck’s son Charles went with his father. Honor Flight does not pay the way for the spouses or children, who pay $250 to participate.
The veterans learned about the program just a few weeks before taking flight with it. The men say they wanted to see the World War II, Iwo Jima and Korean War memorials, the Vietnam Wall and Arlington Cemetery. They wanted to see how the nation had chosen to honor them.
“I thought it would be an honor to go,” said Buck. “I wanted to see the memorial to the World War II vets. I’d heard a lot about it and wanted to see it.”
For Andolsek, traveling to Washington was also a way to honor his father, who served on the USS Utah in World War II, and an older brother, who entered the U.S. Navy two years before his entry, 1943.
“I followed a trail of seamen,” said Andolsek, 85.
Marteeny wanted to go but was concerned about the emotional toll it would take on him.
“I was afraid I’d break down,” he said. “I recommend it to anyone.”
The men say it’s a trip they otherwise would not have been able to make because of mobility limitations and health issues. Most of the men had not been to Washington since shortly after getting out of the service, and none had seen the memorials.
Their full agenda started with a 4:45 a.m. check-in at Hopkins. The emotions began to flow as the veterans gathered at the airport and walked through the concourse toward the gate. Wearing T-shirts identifying themselves as World War II veterans, the men and women received a standing ovation from everyone in the airport. It was an experience that would be repeated throughout the day.
“That kind of got to me,” Buck said. “Every place we went, they’d stand up, clap. People would come up and shake your hand.”
“When we got into Baltimore, there were 200 to 300 people waiting,” he added. “Everybody stood and clapped.”

Grateful Americans
The agenda gave the men time not only to drive by the memorials, but also to get off their tour bus and walk around them. They drew a crowd at the memorials, where strangers approached them and thanked them for their service. Andolsek said that while he was at the World War II Memorial, two grade-school-aged children asked him to tell them about his service.
“I thought they were putting me on,” he says. “They shook my hand and thanked me and walked away.”
“I was impressed by one person who came up to me, when we were walking around the memorial, and thanked me for serving the country,” Devereaux said. “He was about 16 years old, and he made it a point to say something to me. It really hit me that these young kids would take the time to pick out somebody and express how much they appreciated that we were in the war.”
Marteeny said the most emotional moment for him was when the tour was over and they had “mail call.” Letters and cards from students were distributed to the veterans. Marteeny received a hand-colored card from a student at Chestnut Elementary in Painesville. It simply said, “Thank you for being so brave.”
“When I picked that one out of the sack, I broke down,” Marteeny said.
The tour also included a stop at Arlington National Cemetery, where the veterans watched the changing of the guard. The veterans found that was one of the most interesting experiences of the trip. Seeing all the crosses and stars was a grim reminder of how, despite their sufferings and hardships during the war, they were still the lucky ones. They got to come home alive and enjoy full lives.
Andolsek says that memories of those days still haunt him and come into his mind at “different times for no reason at all.”
“When somebody says something, it reminds me of that past,” he says.
For example, he recently got to thinking about the long watches he endured in the North Atlantic as a helmsman in the Navy. Although two men were supposed to be on watch at all times, they would take turns getting five minutes of warmth inside the ship to escape the bitter cold, rolling waves and spray that froze to the ropes and deck.
“We only stood out there for four hours at a time, but it felt like four days,” he says. “That was the worst part of being at sea. There was no place to run and hide.”
Marteeny shares his stories of Anzio, painful stories about horrible times and incidents.
“I did so many amputations; I’d go to amputate somebody, and I’d give them a shot of morphine and tell them to keep their damn mouth shut,” he says.
Devereaux, who served aboard the U.S. Intrepid aircraft carrier, still thinks of the suicide attacks the Japanese launched upon his ship. He can still recall the sounds that preceded the attack, the firing of the 40-mm, then 20-mm, guns — then ducking for cover and life.
“One day we had two suicides in one day. That just about did us in,” he says.
Buck, who served in the Army with the 26th Division, was at the Battle of the Bulge and Rhineland campaigns. His shield was a Browning automatic, and seeing one in the hands of a soldier depicted in the Korean War Memorial held a special significance to him. Indeed, several of the men said that that memorial was their favorite because it so accurately portrayed the work and sacrifice of the American soldier.
The veterans unanimously said they greatly enjoyed their trip and the sights they saw, as well as the lunch buffet.
“It was just awesome,” Andolsek says of the trip.
“I appreciated it very much,” Buck adds.
Their only wish is that more of their generation could have lived long enough to see the memorials erected to them. Andolsek says the last reunion for crew members of his ship was held 15 years ago but only seven showed up. As far as he knows, only two survive.
“I used to call them, but I’d get the wife, and she’d say: ‘I’m sorry. He died a couple of years ago.’ I just quit calling.”

Copyright © 1999-2010 cnhi, inc.