Remembering Our Heroes

They used to be much younger – which is worth remembering, now that perhaps they cannot. 

The aged veterans being honored at the Veterans’ Day event (one day early) in the function room of Villa at Terracina Grand sat quietly as the ceremony proceeded around them. Some nodded off, and some had difficulty responding when they were singled out for commendation when it was their turn to receive a commemorative pin and certificate. 

But decades ago, the former soldiers, sailors, and Marines were dashing, youthful and full of vigor when they donned their country’s uniform. Villa is the “memory unit” at Terracina Grand, an independent and assisted living facility in East Naples, and all the residents there, along with their families, are dealing with cognitive issues such as Alzheimer’s disease. 

With many now in their 90s or 80s, they are nearing the end of their lives, and Villa’s life enrichment director, Julie Badour, herself a Marine Corps veteran, wanted to take the opportunity presented by Veterans’ Day to thank them one more time for their service to our country.

Close to 100 people gathered at the Villa, with contingents from the Collier Sheriff’s Office Honor Guard resplendent in their dress uniforms and the Palmetto Ridge High School JROTC Honor Guard presenting the colors to open the ceremonies. 

Capt. Stanley Bunner, on active duty in the US Navy, acted as master of ceremonies. Fellow naval Captain Jim Albert, along with retired Army Brigadier General Edward Dyer, a senior advisor for the Home Base program assisting veterans, helped to pin the Villa resident veterans.

One notable exception to the subdued demeanor of many of the Villa resident veterans was Joe Elias. As a naval veteran of World War II, she was the senior representative of the “Greatest Generation,” and clearly relished the attention and accolades being lavished on her by a general and two naval captains in full dress uniform. Everybody who came close to her got a kiss, a hug or both, including a photographer snapping a picture of her with her certificate.

As the war raged in the early 1940s, Elias joined the Navy with her high school sweetheart after they both graduated. While she worked in a Naval hospital as a nurse’s aide or candy striper, he went into combat and was killed in action. Still working at the hospital, she helped treat another sailor with serious wounds. They fell in love, married and had two sons. The eight additional veterans living at Villa who were honored included two who fought in the Korean War. 

After the National Anthem, an invocation by Rev. Michael Orsi of St. Agnes Catholic Church, and the Pledge of Allegiance, Woody Graebe of Rolling Thunder took attendees through the Missing Man Table ceremony, symbolizing unfinished business, and the importance of not forgetting those service members still listed as missing in action. Members of the Marine Corps League of Naples, E.T. Brisson Detachment #063, performed the Folding Flag Ceremony. Jack Wagner, commander of the Bert Kurland chapter 696 of MOPH, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, assisted by his fellows, awarded medals to several veterans.

Marine Corps veteran and Purple Heart recipient Richard Lee, who was wounded in Vietnam, told of being “saved by Navy medicine.”

“We stand for freedom,” he said. “We stand ready to answer the call when America calls 9-1-1.” 

Army veteran and author Robert Fulton enthralled the gathering with a dramatic rendition of a nighttime mission he flew as the pilot of an Apache attack helicopter in Vietnam. Vectored to a point in the jungle illuminated by a single flashlight, they fired their rockets into inky darkness, and never did learn, he said, what became of the small group of servicemen surrounded on the ground beneath them. 

Fulton finished by quoting from “The Fallen” by Laurence Binyon. 

“They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.”

We remember the fallen and commemorate those who survived. But time comes for us all.