U.S. Rep. Rudy Yakym, who represents Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District, was the keynote speaker at Rochester High School’s Veterans Day ceremony on Friday, Nov. 10.

Text and Photos
By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

ROCHESTER — Military veterans are “living monuments of sacrifice, bravery, courage, valor and patriotism.”

So said U.S. Rep. Rudy Yakym of Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District at a Veterans Day ceremony on Friday, Nov. 10, at Rochester High School.

Yakym, the keynote speaker for the event and son of an Air Force veteran, said “veterans represent the very best of what the United States of America has to offer.”

“Our veterans are the special 1% of Americans who were willing to give up their today, so we can have our tomorrow,” he said. “They put their life on the line to protect our nation and preserve our freedoms.”

Yakym referenced Vietnam veteran Allen Reed, whom he had just met with earlier Friday in Mishawaka to replace one of Allen’s Purple Hearts that had been stolen.

“(In the war) Allen was shot in the chest and had a collapsed lung. He spent 76 days in the ICU, and after he going through all of the pain and all of the rehab, he told the Marine Corps he wanted to go back to the front lines,” said Yakym. “He spent the next three months on the front lines (before being) shot again.”

“After going through rehab and coming back from that, he told the Marines that he wanted to go back to the front lines where he had so many of his friends who were shot and killed right next to him,” said Yakym. “They wouldn’t let him go back after he had been shot twice.”

“Our veterans also served and sacrificed so that we can have and enjoy our American way of life, so we can live in safety, worship in freedom, enjoy our First Amendment right to speak our minds, choose our leaders and who will represent us, build a … career and provide for our families,” he continued. “We know it’s because of their bravery and because of the battle scars that they have borne that we are able to gather here today as citizens of the greatest, most powerful, prosperous, generous and freest nation in the history of the world.”

“And the day that we start forgetting that, is the day that we will cease to be all of these things,” Yakym added.

Earlier in the ceremony, Rochester Mayor Ted Denton spoke.

He referenced the horrors that World War II veterans went through in Europe fighting Nazism.

Denton also recalled his college friend who was killed in Vietnam.

“We need to study our history, and we need to carry it forward to not only honor these people who have been there, done that, but pass it on to the next generations,” said Denton.

At the ceremony, several veterans were specially recognized. They included World War II veterans Ben Severns, Bob Caywood, Kenny Gardner and Ed Felke, who were present, and Richard Hudkins and Bob Gottschalk, who were unable to make it. The Daughters of the American Revolution presented them with certificates.

Rochester Clerk-Treasurer Shoda Beehler, who’s in the Beta Mu chapter of Tri Kappa, recognized Iraqi War veteran and Columbia Elementary School Principal Jason Snyder. He will receive a quilt from the sorority.

Rochester Mayor Ted Denton speaks.

Several World War II veterans were honored at the ceremony with certificates from the Daughters of the American Revolution, including 100-year-old Ben Severns, seated in the bottom left of the photo.

The Beta Mu chapter of Tri Kappa has chosen Columbia Elementary School Principal Jason Snyder as its honored veteran this year. At the ceremony Friday, Tri Kappa member and Rochester Clerk-Treasurer Shoda Beehler, second from the right in the photo, gave Iraqi War veteran Snyder, in the tan blazer, a representation of what his finished quilt will look like. In the front row with Snyder and Beehler are from left Snyder’s wife Jenny Snyder and their daughters Riplee, Benning and Piper Snyder.

Fulton County Veterans Service Officer and Vietnam veteran Ric Fouts talks.

Piper Snyder, the daughter of Columbia Elementary School Principal Jason Snyder, was one of several students who talked about military members in their families.

Master Sgt. Wesley Crabb, left, and Tech Sgt. Ben Durr of the Grissom Air Reserve Honor Guard participate in a flag folding ceremony.