Veterans honored for their service, sacrifice in North Huntingdon

Three men from the Greatest Generation sat at a table Monday during Veterans Day ceremonies in North Huntingdon, taking in the applause of more than 200 veterans and their families gathered inside the J. Howard Snyder Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 781.

Almost 75 years removed from their service in World War II, their collective loss of hearing and the nine decades of living make it hard for them to communicate their experiences during the war.

Bernard Murphy of North Huntingdon, who was joined by WWII veterans Harold Carmichael, 96, and James Iezzi, recalled how he graduated from Norwin High School in 1943 and then enlisted in the Army as the United States fought Germany and Japan.

Murphy, 94, said he felt it was his duty to serve his country in its time of need.

“I felt it was the right thing to do,” Murphy said.

Murphy became a surgical technician attached to an anti-aircraft unit. By the war’s end in May 1945, his unit was in Dusseldorf along the Rhine River in western Germany.

“We were stationed in so many different places. We only lost one boy (soldier),” Murphy recalled.

After the war, he became a minister and served in the Primitive Methodist Church in Westmoreland City, North Huntingdon.

“God called me and I went in,” Murphy said.

That service to country displayed by Murphy and dozens of other veterans in attendance and their sacrifice were among the themes emphasized in the address by Ret. Army Col. Kenneth Gongaware, a 1967 Norwin High School graduate.

“This is a community with a rich heritage of service to and sacrifice for the country,” said Gongaware, who had a 29-year military career that included multiple commands and a stint in the White House when George H.W. Bush was president.

Gongaware, who grew up on a farm along Barnes Lake Road, noted that Veterans Day had been named Armistice Day, in recognition of the signing of the armistice on Nov. 11, 1918 that ended the fighting in World War I.

But, when the so-called War to End All Wars was followed by other wars — World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, to name a few — “every succeeding generation had to meet our security challenges,” Gongaware said.

Gongaware said he was not sold on making a career of the Army until he was commanding a tank battalion in West Germany during the Cold War. He was stationed in the Fulda Gap, the low-lying area where tanks from the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations were considered likely to break through in an attack on NATO forces in Western Europe.

“I wanted to make a difference,” Gongaware said.

As a commander of thousands of soldiers, Gongaware said it’s a great responsibility because so many lives depend upon the commander.

Moving up the ranks to be commander “is about responsibility, not privilege,” he noted.

“It’s a great opportunity to influence the next generation of leaders,” Gongaware said.

He was part of the leadership group for the nation while working as a communications signal officer under President George H.W. Bush. The farm boy from North Huntingdon accompanied the president to Warsaw to meet with Lech Walesa, Poland’s president, and he traveled the country with Bush during the 1992 presidential campaign.

“It was really exciting.”