Assisted Living

By Rick Banas of assisted living provider BMA Management, Ltd.

As Veterans Day 2012 nears, I am reminded of two people that I met on Veterans Day last year. Both served our country in World War II and were living at the Heritage Woods affordable assisted living community that BMA manages in Moline, Illinois.

Lee Trainor talked with me about where he was when he heard the news about the Bombing of Pearl Harbor and his experience in the war.

He was living in Kansas City and had gone to Hutchinson, Kansas, for a visit. Hutchinson is located on the Arkansas River, nearly 40 miles northwest of Wichita. There was a radio playing on a small table in the lobby of the hotel where he was staying. It stopped playing so he went over to see what was wrong and heard the announcement.

Two weeks later, Lee went into the service of our country at the age of 18. He was in the second wave of Marines to land on Iwo Jima in the battle with the Japanese for this strategic stronghold in 1945. He watched from within a few hundred yards as Marines raised the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi.

He spent nearly six weeks in combat on the island but said he does not remember a single thing from about the third day until the last day of combat. About 4 a.m. that morning, a live mortar landed just two feet away from where he was standing. He reasons that the mortar did not explode because the volcanic soil he was standing in was so soft.

Following his discharge from the service, Lee went to the University of Missouri in Columbia and on to enjoy a career in newspapers and advertising. While working for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, he had the opportunity to cover President Eisenhower at a ranch up in the high country.

Fred Collins was working as a machinist at the Arsenal in Rock Island when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He served as a Fighting Seabee in the South Pacific. He was part of the Battle of Okinawa, which was the largest amphibious invasion of the Pacific campaign and the bloodiest battle in the Pacific War. Reportedly, more people lost their lives in the Battle of Okinawa than in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Fred talked about serving in a fox hole during the battle, with bullets flying and Kamikaze aircraft and mortar shells dropping from the sky. His buddy serving next to him in the fox hole was killed. Fred was awarded a Bronze Star for his service.

All of us at BMA Management and at the senior living, assisted living, supportive living and memory care communities that we manage salute our Veterans.

Here is a listing of some of the activities being hosted by BMA communities to honor our Veterans:

Heritage Woods of Dwight is providing the opportunity for you to honor individuals who have served our country in the military in a special way. The community is selling luminaries for its Patriotic Luminary Display at a cost of $3 each, with proceeds benefiting the effort to update and beautify the Veterans of Foreign War Memorial in Dwight. You can put the name of the person you would like to honor on the luminary. They community is selling the luminaries between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. through Friday, Nov. 9. For more information, call 815-584-9280 or visit online.