Photos and story by Monty Siekerman
Ada Schools hosted its annual Veterans Day breakfast on Monday, an especially memorable occasion this year due to the 100th anniversary of The Great War with the armistice ending World War I on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Forty men and women who served in the military, and their spouses, attended the breakfast which was paid for by an anonymous donor.
Phil Marshall of Springfield spoke this year. He told about enlisting at the age of 18, going to flight school, and, at the age of 21, then headed to Vietnam to pilot unarmed, medical Huey helicopters. He flew from July 4, 1969, until he was injured in November. The crews of medivac Huey’s saved the lives of many injured soldiers, having a survival rate of 98 percent of those they evacuated.
Marshall has written a dozen books (available on Amazon) about his experience from a diary he kept. He acknowledged the service of the military men and women in keeping our freedoms. He said, “The harder the thing is to do, the more value to you it is."
