Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Memorial Day: Greater love has no man (or woman)… May 25, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:16 AM
Tags: , , , ,

A soldier statue at the Northfield Area Veterans Memorial at Riverside Lions Park in Northfield.

WAR. It is easy to distance ourselves, to forget. Out of sight, out of mind.

But when war becomes personal—when a close loved one is serving his/her country, then the perspective changes. War weaves into lives with threads of fear and uncertainty, with distraction and unease, with life lived always on the cusp of “when the soldier returns home.”

I’ve never lived that life in the present. But I have experienced it in the past, in the afterward of war. My father fought on the front line during the Korean War. Battle forever changed him. How could it not? If you killed someone close enough to see the whites of their eyes, how would you feel? Even if you understood the choice, kill or be killed?

My father, Elvern Kletscher, left, with two of his soldier buddies in Korea.

My dad lived with the demons of war—the nightmares, the flashbacks of buddies blown apart on the battlefield, the memories of hunger and cold and the digging into foxholes and a sniper picking off members of his platoon and mortar rounds winging toward him.

There is no glory in war or in violent death on the battlefield.

My dad carried home a July 31, 1953, memorial service bulletin from Sucham-dong, Korea. In the right column is listed the name of his fallen buddy, Raymond W. Scheibe.

Sonny Nealon, Ray’s best friend in high school, sent me this photo he took of his friend Ray’s gravestone. Ray was killed by a mortar round on June 2, 1953, the day before he was to leave Korea and return home to his wife and six-week-old daughter in Wollbach, Nebraska. My dad witnessed his buddy’s death.

On this Memorial Day weekend, let us remember, not war, but the men and women who served their country. Remember them as individuals—as sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles…

Honor them. Respect them. Thank them for giving of themselves to preserve and protect our freedom.

Long-time Cannon City resident Bob respectfully removes his cowboy hat during the playing of taps at the 2011 Memorial Day service at the Cannon City Cemetery. If you want to experience a simple and moving program in a rural cemetery, attend this one at 2 p.m. Monday at Cannon City (near Faribault).

An in-ground marker honors my father, Elvern Kletscher, a Korean War veteran and recipient of the Purple Heart, for wounds he suffered at Heartbreak Ridge in Korea.

And if they are no longer living, like my dad, honor them by visiting their grave sites or a veterans’ memorial or by attending a Memorial Day service or parade. That is the very least we can do to express our gratitude.

An eagle at the new Veterans Memorial Park in Morristown. The memorial will be dedicated at 3 p.m. Saturday.

TO READ A STORY I wrote about my Dad’s service in Korea, click here. The story was published by Harvest House Publishers in 2005 in the book, God Answers Prayers: Military Edition, edited by Allison Bottke.

HOW WILL YOU HONOR veterans this Memorial Day?

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Flag Day patriotism June 14, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 4:51 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

IN HONOR OF FLAG DAY today, I’ve scrolled through my archives and pulled some of my favorite flag images. For the few I am showcasing here, many more exist within the stories of Minnesota Prairie Roots.

But for today, for this minute, view these and reflect on the many ways Minnesotans show their patriotism and loyalty to country via American flags.

Vietnam War era veteran Joel Kukacka's patriotic garage in the hamlet of Heidelberg, Minnesota.

A flag waves in the wind on a soldier's grave at the Cannon City Cemetery.

Herold Flags in West Concord sells flags and flagpoles.

Flags fly at the Rice County Courthouse, Faribault.

Korean War veteran Ray Sanders at the 2010 Memorial Day ceremony in Faribault's Central Park.

Blue stars on a WW II honor flag displayed last July 4 at my church, Trinity Lutheran in Faribault, along with American flags.

American flag decor adds a patriotic flair to the down-home Kasota Zoo.

Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The patriotic traditions of Memorial Day in Minnesota May 31, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:34 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Boy Scouts march down Faribault's Central Avenue, giving away small American flags, on Memorial Day.

A member of the Color Guard salutes at the Memorial Day program in Central Park.

YES, DEAR READERS, I have yet another Memorial Day post to share with you. But I cannot help myself. My parents reared me to respect this day as a time to honor our war dead.

Every year of my childhood, we attended the Memorial Day program in my hometown of Vesta on the southwestern Minnesota prairie. I continued that tradition with my children by taking them each year to the Memorial Day parade in Faribault.

It is a tradition my husband and I continue, minus the kids—two of whom are grown and gone and the third a teen that cannot be roused from bed for the 10 a.m. parade.

Now I smile at the young families who gather along the curb in downtown Faribault to watch the veterans and Boy Scouts, the old cars and horses, the Girl Scouts and the Shattuck-St. Mary’s crack squad, the police cars and fire truck and marching bands.

Little hands reach for American flags distributed by the walking, sometimes running, Boy Scouts.

Clutched fists wave American flags.

It’s all so patriotic.

After the parade, the crowd gathers at nearby Central Park for more patriotism and I am reminded of my dad, a Korean War vet, who marched so many times with his Color Guard in parades and programs.

In the park bandshell, the guests of honor sit, rise and tell us they have little to say before offering these words:

“Your wars aren’t all won on the battlefield. They’re also won at home.”

“If you know a veteran, just say, ‘thank you.’ It means so much to them—something Vietnam vets were short of.”

“I salute all veterans here.”

“God bless everybody.”

“God bless America.”

The Color Guard leads the way in the Faribault Memorial Day parade.

These Boy Scouts seem a bit indecisive, while other Boy Scouts race toward the crowd to hand out American flags.

Every year the Boy Scouts give away flags during the parade.

A veteran and others wait for the Memorial Day program to start at Central Park.

The Color Guard advances and the Memorial Day observance begins in Central Park.

The Color Guard soldiers salute. Emcee and radio announcer Gordy Kosfeld, on stage at the podium, will later tell us: "Memorial Day should be a time of reflection, not a holiday."

A strong wind blew the Color Guard flags set next to the bandshell stage at Central Park.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Memorial Day at Cannon City May 30, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:15 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

About 30 people gather at the Cannon City Cemetery for an afternoon Memorial Day observance.

IN THE SHELTER of the spruce, of the pines, we formed a semi circle, clustered together in this small country cemetery to honor the veterans buried here, 22 of them from the Civil War.

Ezekiel and Samuel. Spencer and Charles. Henry and Theodore. Emcee Mel Sanborn read the list of names as the wind whipped his words into sometimes inaudible, unintelligible syllables at the Cannon City Cemetery.

Since the late teens or early 1920s, folks have gathered in this Rice County cemetery every Memorial Day, initially called “Decoration Day,” to honor the war dead. Civil War veteran Elijah Walrod was quoted as saying that his son Luther “would strike up the Death March and lead the procession” from the nearby Cannon City School, along the country road to the cemetery.

School children—some of them in attendance at the 2011 Memorial Day observance—once marched with flags and flower bouquets and lilac wreaths and then, afterward, celebrated at the school picnic.

When the school closed in the 1960s, the Cannon City Cemetery Board took over the annual Memorial Day observance, a tradition that continues today, minus the Death March from the country school. It is an unpretentious, informal program that is touching and moving and heartfelt. Americana through and through.

My husband and I came here on this muggy afternoon to experience a small-town Memorial Day observance. We were the strangers among those who had grown up here and had loved ones buried in this ground butted against the rich black soil of farm fields.

Yet, we were welcomed like family and I felt as if I had stepped back in time to the Memorial Day observances of my youth—the days of patriotic songs and playing of taps and reading of “In Flanders Fields.” I mouthed the words silently: “In Flanders Fields the poppies grow between the crosses row on row…” These poetic lines I knew nearly from heart, having recited them as a young girl on the stage of the Vesta Community Hall some 125 miles from this cemetery.

As Don Chester strummed his guitar and clamped his harmonica, we sang “My country, ‘Tis of Thee” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and other patriotic songs.

Bob (didn't get his last name) sings as Don and Judy Chester lead the group in song. Bob attended Cannon City School and participated in Memorial Day programs here as a student.

Song sheets were handed out to attendees. Here Mel Sanborn sings "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

When Steve Bonde blasted “The Star Spangled Banner” on his trumpet, we sang along, turned toward the flag at the cemetery entrance, the brass quelling voices that drifted away with the word-flogging wind.

It mattered not how well or how loudly the 30 or so of us sang. It mattered not that a young girl darted inside the semi circle to pluck a dandelion from the grass. It mattered not that the occasional airplane droned out our voices. We were focused on the songs, “The Gettysburg Address” read by Audrey Sanborn Johnson, and, finally, Bonde’s mournful playing of taps.

Long-time Cannon City resident Bob respectfully removes his cowboy hat during the playing of taps, a tribute that moves me to tears.

When the final note ended, the small group drifted, scattering across the cemetery to visit the graves of loved ones. I wandered, drawn by American flags to the final resting places of veterans. Names I did not know in an unfamiliar cemetery I was walking for the first time.

After the program, attendees visited gravesites.

Yet, despite the unfamiliarity with this place or these people, I felt connected to them by the reason I was here—to reflect upon the sacrifices made by so many American men and women in defense of our freedom. America. Land of the free and home of the brave.

A flag waves in the wind on a soldier's grave.

A star marks a veteran's tombstone.

Can anyone explain the symbolism of these clasped hands on a veteran's grave?

A flag marks the entrance to the Cannon City Cemetery.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The veterans of Vesta

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 4:12 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A flag placed on a veteran's grave at the Vesta Cemetery in southwestern Minnesota.

EARTH MEETS SKY HERE.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I have come to this hilltop cemetery outside of my hometown of Vesta in southwestern Minnesota to remember.

I walk the rows, between the tombstones, lean in close, read the names, memories only a thought away.

My focus is on my father and the other veterans buried here whose names I know, whose stories of war I will never fully know.

An in-ground marker honors my father, Elvern Kletscher, a Korean War veteran and recipient of the Purple Heart for wounds he suffered at Heartbreak Ridge in Korea.

How did they feel leaving family and farm? Were they scared? Were they honored to serve their country? Did they yearn for home as they shouldered their weapons? Did they leave as boys, come home as men? Were they scarred by war, forever changed?

I wondered as strong prairie winds whipped flags attached to white wooden crosses. So many flags. So many graves of men who’ve served.

If only I’d asked them to tell me their stories, these men whom I’d never thought of as soldiers, until I saw their graves marked by crosses and stars and American flags.

The local American Legion marks veterans' graves with white crosses.

Barb Schmidt teaches her grandchildren about their ancestors as they place flowers on the graves of loved ones Saturday evening at the Vesta Cemetery.

Set atop a hill, the wind catches the flags marking vets' graves.

I was surprised by the number of veterans buried in the Vesta Cemetery, their graves marked by small flags attached to white crosses. This photo shows only one small portion of the graveyard.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Honoring our veterans: Memorial Day 2010 May 31, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 3:53 PM
Tags: , , ,

Korean War veteran Ray Sanders reviews a Memorial Day flier prior to a ceremony in Faribault's Central Park.

I NEVER EXPECT TO CRY. But nearly every Memorial Day, I do.

Today tears edge the corners of my eyes as a Korean Conflict memorial wreath is placed upon a white cross during a program in Faribault’s Central Park.

Up until that moment, I am OK. But then, just like that, the emotions surface. I fight to hold back the tears. My lips quiver.

I am thinking of my dad, Elvern Kletscher, who served on the front lines during the Korean War. If he was still here, I would thank him. But now, of my soldier-father, I have only his military photos to peruse, his few shared war stories to remember, his letters to read and his grave to visit.

He has been gone seven years now although, truly, I lost my dad decades before that to the ravages of war.

Today, please take time to remember and honor veterans, those men and women who served our country to preserve the freedoms we enjoy.

The Rice County Veterans Association Honor Guard/Color Guard awaits the start of a Memorial Day program, where memorial wreaths will later be placed upon the white cross seen here in the center of this photo.

An aging veteran, among those we honor this Memorial Day.

A veteran proudly holds the American flag, representing the country he served, the freedom he preserved.

The color guard places American flags in front of the bandshell in Faribault's Central Park.

Just-placed pavers honoring veterans at the Rice County Veterans' Memorial in Faribault, currently under construction at the county courthouse.

A wreath rests on the plaza of the Rice County Veterans' Memorial which is expanding from the Civil War Monument which has long graced the courthouse grounds.

Flags fly at half-staff at the Rice County courthouse.

TO READ A STORY I WROTE about my father, which was published in the book God Answers Prayers Military Edition: True Stories from People Who Serve and Those Who Love Them, click on this link:

http://www.harvesthousepublishers.com/texts/excerpts/9780736916660_exc.htm

Scroll to my story, Faith and Hope in a Land of Heartbreak. This shares the heart-wrenching experiences of my soldier-father and is my tribute to him. This was published in 2005 by Harvest House Publishers, two years after his death.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling