Soo Line: Four years after the journey, Veterans are grateful for Honor Flight

Soo Line by Soo Greiman

It’s been four years since two local veterans took part in an Honor Flight that departed Waterloo’s airport Sept. 22, 2022, but both are still talking about the amazing experience they enjoyed. For many, the trip was the first opportunity they had to visit the memorials in our nation’s capital that were built in their honor. Others discovered the rousing welcome-home celebration they received sharply contrasted with the disrespectful moments they’d been subjected to years before as young soldiers.

Among the veterans aboard the jet headed to Washington, D.C., early that September morning were friends Dave Rousselow and Dalton Uhde, classmates who had grown up together at Orange School. Both had gone on to serve the country, Dave in the Navy and Dalton in the Army, during the late 1960s and early ’70s, during the time of the controversial Vietnam War.

Each clearly remembered hearing how soldiers in service at the time were treated badly, but they affirmed Honor Flight was the opposite. Dalton noted, “Our trip was first-class. Everything about it was great. What a difference! When I returned stateside from Vietnam, I wasn’t very loved, especially when going through airports.”

He reminisced, “The trip to D.C. was totally different, so yea, it was a big deal to me. Everywhere we went, we were treated royally.”

For anyone unfamiliar with it, Honor Flight Network is just what it sounds like: jet plane flights from around the country transporting veterans who secured our freedom to Washington, D.C., where they are bused to different memorials commemorating their service. Often during their day, the veterans visit Arlington National Cemetery to witness the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Since 2005, Honor Flights have made it possible for more than 200,000 veterans from all service branches to visit their military sites in the nation’s capital.

With nearly 90 veterans taking the September 2022 flight, Rousselow remembered a few were World War II soldiers, besides several Korean War veterans. All the rest had served during the Vietnam War. At a preflight meeting, everyone was issued a red shirt and red cap bearing the insignia “Sullivan-Hartogh-Davis Honor Flight.”

Taking a moment to reflect on his earlier life in service, Uhde said after he and Dave graduated in 1967 from Orange School, he attended Hawkeye Institute of Technology (now Hawkeye Community College), enrolling in tool and die training.

Once he completed the coursework, he discovered how scarce jobs in his area of training were at that time, so he decided to enlist in the Army, grinning, “Before they drafted me.”

After four months of basic training, during which he married his high school sweetheart, Sandy, Uhde was sent in 1970 to the Vung Tau base, located in the southern portion of Vietnam, near the South China Sea. Stationed there, he worked regular duty for months before being reassigned to the Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, working there for the next 14 months.

Whenever Dalton or anyone from the base in Texas was granted leave or R&R, they were told not to wear their Army uniforms while traveling, since anti-war demonstrators would emerge and cause a scene.

“We saw people who were angry at us just because we were soldiers.”

The insults they endured, although not justified, still hurt.

While Dave Rousselow’s service career lasted for six years, it began much like his friend’s.

“I signed up for welding at Hawkeye Tech where my instructors were Ken Beinfang and his brother, Harold, both of whom had retired from the Navy. I wasn’t there a year before they had me enlisting in the Navy,” he laughed.

It was 1968. As he left for basic training, Dave took his first-ever airplane ride before arriving at Great Lakes Training Camp in Illinois. Following a year of training, he was sent to the Navy base at Treasure Island near San Francisco, where he quickly learned to be alert for anti-war protesters who threw eggs at soldiers entering and departing the base.

“Besides eggs thrown, I remember being called every name in the book.”

While at that base, Rousselow was assigned to serve on the huge aircraft carrier, the USS Hancock.

“After getting to Vietnam, we stayed busy all the time on the ship, situated off the coast at safe locations. Of course, it helped that we were surrounded by five or six battleships all the time.”

In early 2022, a neighbor working for the Honor Flight program with the Sullivan-Hartogh-Davis VFW Post told Dave about a September flight being organized, advising the veteran to check it out. After talking to his friend Dalton about the worthwhile opportunity, both men signed up to take the flight. Dave indicated his chaperone would be his son, Aaron, with Dalton’s chaperone being his oldest daughter, Shelly.

The Honor Flight jet, loaded with its northeast Iowa veterans, arrived at the D.C. airport midmorning, where it was greeted by a cheering crowd before the veterans and their chaperones climbed into buses for a tour of military memorials and Arlington National Cemetery.

“Senator Grassley stopped by to visit us, as did several other Iowa congressional representatives,” nodded Dave.

Dalton remembered Army Gen. Curly Hultmann of Iowa was there to shake hands with them.

Uhde shared a special moment he’d experienced at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. After arriving at the long black wall bearing 58,318 names of killed or missing soldiers, he’d hoped to locate the name of a student a year older than him from Orange High, Rapheal Rendon, who was killed in Vietnam in the late 1960s. After searching, Dalton was glad to find his name.

Moments later, he quietly added, “Just standing at the black wall holding all those names was a humbling feeling.”

For Dave, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and changing of the guard were impressively meaningful.

“I never knew everything those soldiers do has to be precise, down to the number of steps they take and how every detail of their uniforms has to be correct. You can see their commitment to the memorial is incredibly powerful.”

Returning to Waterloo late that evening, the weary veterans walked into a grand finale, thanks to an exuberant crowd of family and friends waiting inside the airport. Completing the atmosphere was a band playing all kinds of patriotic tunes.

Both men agreed it was yet another highlight of a valuable experience, unlike their return home years ago after being discharged.

“Everywhere we went, people were coming up saying ‘thank you for your service’ to each of us,” nodded Dave, “and ya know what, I never got tired of hearing it.”