thedrifter
06-12-09, 07:21 AM
By KAREN HERZOG
Bismarck Tribune
Wherever veterans gather, stories bloom.
Helen Soma of Bismarck has one about bananas. As a young woman raised in upstate New York, she wanted desperately to enlist to serve in World War II. Two of her brothers were in the Marines, and another was a fighter pilot who was shot down and severely injured.
The problem: To enlist, women had to weigh at least 90 pounds. Soma weighed 89.
Solution:She ate as many bananas as she could, even taking a bagful on the train to Philadelphia for her weigh-in.
She made it. And she served, becoming a company clerk at Kearney, Neb., where fighters staged and assembled their crews. She has other stories, too, about meeting Col. Paul Tibbetts, pilot of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb. She met a lieutenant who looked familiar; he introduced himself. Clark Gable.
Soma was among a half-dozen World War II veterans who appeared at a news conference Thursday at the Bismarck Airport announcing the second Rough Rider Honor Flight, which is planned to leave from Bismarck Sept. 18.
The first flight took 96 World War II veterans from central and western North Dakota to visit the World War IIMemorial in Washington, D.C., this May.
Soma was the lone female veteran on the first flight, which included her husband, Sid - "Ole" - a Navy veteran of World War II.
"There are no words to describe it," she said. To be at the World War IIMemorial itself was like being in a trance, she said:"It symbolized what everybody did."
And serving during that war was something, indeed, that almost everybody did, said C. Emerson Murry of Bismarck, another passenger on the first Honor Flight.
"With 161/2 million of us in uniform, there weren't very many left" stateside, he said.
Serving in World War II was once so common that it was not considered special, he said. So many who returned didn't talk about their experiences, which, in any case, were difficult to explain.
"We truly thought we hadn't done anything special," he said.
The community needs to say "thank you" to these veterans, said Kevin Cramer, co-chairman with Joe Hauer of the Rough Rider Honor Flight organizing committee.
Each flight costs approximately $175,000, so the fundraising is under way for this flight and as many more as necessary until every World War II veteran who is able can make that trip, Cramer said.
"We will leave no stone unturned as long as any World War IIveteran is alive and able to go from our communities," he said.
No veteran ever pays for any part of the trip, and Murry praised the organizing committee for its work.
"It was the trip of a lifetime,"he said. "There was no need not met. The planning was magnificent."
About half the funds needed for the next flight have been raised, thanks to the contributions of the community, individuals, groups and businesses, Cramer said.
"We have a lot of work to do yet," he said. So far, 338 veterans from 85 communities have applied for an Honor Flight seat, he said.
"So we'll be raising money for a long time,"Hauer said.
But that groundwork is small stuff "compared to what they did for us," Cramer said.
The flight gives veterans the honor and the homecoming many never had.
Murry was one of the few who experienced a grand one.
As a member of the 82nd Airborne, he was part of a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue in New York Jan. 1, 1946.
Afterward, he remembers, the guys dispersed around down and found they couldn't buy a drink or a meal.
But there was one beverage they craved that they hadn't had access for more than two years. Those free drinks they downed were, he said, "milk after milk after milk."
For more information about the Rough Rider Honor Flights, visit http://rrhonorflight.com. Tax-deductible contributions may be mailed to Rough Rider Honor Flights, Box 220, Bismarck, N.D. 58502.
(Reach reporter Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or karen.herzog@;bismarcktribune.com.)
Ellie
Bismarck Tribune
Wherever veterans gather, stories bloom.
Helen Soma of Bismarck has one about bananas. As a young woman raised in upstate New York, she wanted desperately to enlist to serve in World War II. Two of her brothers were in the Marines, and another was a fighter pilot who was shot down and severely injured.
The problem: To enlist, women had to weigh at least 90 pounds. Soma weighed 89.
Solution:She ate as many bananas as she could, even taking a bagful on the train to Philadelphia for her weigh-in.
She made it. And she served, becoming a company clerk at Kearney, Neb., where fighters staged and assembled their crews. She has other stories, too, about meeting Col. Paul Tibbetts, pilot of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb. She met a lieutenant who looked familiar; he introduced himself. Clark Gable.
Soma was among a half-dozen World War II veterans who appeared at a news conference Thursday at the Bismarck Airport announcing the second Rough Rider Honor Flight, which is planned to leave from Bismarck Sept. 18.
The first flight took 96 World War II veterans from central and western North Dakota to visit the World War IIMemorial in Washington, D.C., this May.
Soma was the lone female veteran on the first flight, which included her husband, Sid - "Ole" - a Navy veteran of World War II.
"There are no words to describe it," she said. To be at the World War IIMemorial itself was like being in a trance, she said:"It symbolized what everybody did."
And serving during that war was something, indeed, that almost everybody did, said C. Emerson Murry of Bismarck, another passenger on the first Honor Flight.
"With 161/2 million of us in uniform, there weren't very many left" stateside, he said.
Serving in World War II was once so common that it was not considered special, he said. So many who returned didn't talk about their experiences, which, in any case, were difficult to explain.
"We truly thought we hadn't done anything special," he said.
The community needs to say "thank you" to these veterans, said Kevin Cramer, co-chairman with Joe Hauer of the Rough Rider Honor Flight organizing committee.
Each flight costs approximately $175,000, so the fundraising is under way for this flight and as many more as necessary until every World War II veteran who is able can make that trip, Cramer said.
"We will leave no stone unturned as long as any World War IIveteran is alive and able to go from our communities," he said.
No veteran ever pays for any part of the trip, and Murry praised the organizing committee for its work.
"It was the trip of a lifetime,"he said. "There was no need not met. The planning was magnificent."
About half the funds needed for the next flight have been raised, thanks to the contributions of the community, individuals, groups and businesses, Cramer said.
"We have a lot of work to do yet," he said. So far, 338 veterans from 85 communities have applied for an Honor Flight seat, he said.
"So we'll be raising money for a long time,"Hauer said.
But that groundwork is small stuff "compared to what they did for us," Cramer said.
The flight gives veterans the honor and the homecoming many never had.
Murry was one of the few who experienced a grand one.
As a member of the 82nd Airborne, he was part of a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue in New York Jan. 1, 1946.
Afterward, he remembers, the guys dispersed around down and found they couldn't buy a drink or a meal.
But there was one beverage they craved that they hadn't had access for more than two years. Those free drinks they downed were, he said, "milk after milk after milk."
For more information about the Rough Rider Honor Flights, visit http://rrhonorflight.com. Tax-deductible contributions may be mailed to Rough Rider Honor Flights, Box 220, Bismarck, N.D. 58502.
(Reach reporter Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or karen.herzog@;bismarcktribune.com.)
Ellie