Rolling Thunder visits Woodside Village

By EVELYN LONG -

The solem­nity of the pro­gram con­ducted by Chap­ter 5 of Rolling Thun­der at Wood­side Vil­lage Care Cen­ter on Octo­ber 6, served as a reminder that there are many US ser­vice men and women miss­ing in action or held as pris­on­ers of war.

Focus­ing on the Viet­nam War, Rolling Thun­der brought along a replica of the Viet­nam Wall Memo­r­ial which was imprinted with the names of 137 Ohioans.

Two poignant scenes were re enacted, one in which a mother, daugh­ter and son searched the wall for the name of their loved one — and in another scene a buddy accom­pa­nied by two “ghost walk­ers” searched for the names of those two bud­dies on the wall.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gram were Jim Craw­ford, of Mount Gilead, who is Chap­lain of Chap­ter 5; Phil Den­ni­son, pres­i­dent of the Chap­ter; Paul Kline, chair­man of the Wall Com­mit­tee and Frank Schu­maker, vice pres­i­dent, who con­ducted the POW-MIA ceremony.

Pat Sex­ton, who accom­pa­nies Chap­ter 5 on its appear­ances, lost her hus­band, David Mason Sex­ton, in 1971 when he was killed in Viet­nam at the age of 21 years. He was serv­ing with the US Army on a 155 self Pro­pelled How­itzer and had been in Viet Nam only four months. Sex­ton said she sensed his death at the moment he was killed and 15 min­utes later,their son was born on March 15, 1971. She said nei­ther his remains nor the DNA of her hus­band have ever been found. “I’m thank­ful for the names on the wall,” she said, where she can trace that of her late hus­band, She remains active with Rolling Thun­der and is an over-the-road truck dri­ver employee. Their son is 41 years old.

Speak­ing briefly was Ben Granger, admin­is­tra­tor of Wood­side Vil­lage, who said “Vet­er­ans have a spe­cial place here at Wood­side. The ‘great­est gen­er­a­tion’ and every gen­er­a­tion of vet­er­ans are our com­mit­ment to vet­er­ans. WE care for vet­er­ans from a three county area. Rolling Thun­der has adopted our build­ing,” he said.

There are 16 vet­er­ans resid­ing in Wood­side Village.

A sim­u­lated res­cue com­plete with the actual sound of gun­fire by record­ing, was made of a pris­oner in a bam­boo cage. The pris­oner was por­trayed by Michael Tut­tle of Shelby. Por­tray­ing the mother, daugh­ter and son search­ing for their loved one’s name were Hazel Smith, Sex­ton and Don Sey­mour, chair­man of the board.

This pro­gram was also spon­sored by Hos­pice of Mor­row County, rep­re­sented by Ver­lon Bricker, vol­un­teer chap­lain and Dave Matos, Chap­lain and the Mor­row County Vet­er­ans Com­mis­sion rep­re­sented by Ryan Law­son, vet­er­ans ser­vice officer.

Hos­pice pre­sented a cer­tifi­cate of recog­ni­tion to each vet­eran in Wood­side and Law­son offered infor­ma­tion on the many ser­vices offered at the Vet­er­ans Ser­vice Office.

Vet­er­ans resid­ing in Wood­side Vil­lage include Norma Doyle, a riv­eter dur­ing WWII; Army Vet­er­ans Car­roll Burns, Gilbert Mul­len­nix, Eugene Shaf­fer, Ed Shrout, John Ten­nant and Harold Yoder; Navy Vet­er­ans Bill Hack­worth, Olen Hill, Ron Komer, Bob Chap­man, Ron Squibb, James Free­man and John Gard­ner and Air Force Vet­eran Her­bert Par­sons. Robin Askew is a vet­eran of the WACS.

There are 4000 vet­er­ans in Mor­row County.

The pro­gram con­cluded with a demon­stra­tion on the proper fold­ing of the Amer­i­can flag.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Oct 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.