Vets, civilians pause to remember
By Wes Franklin / Daily News Staff WriterFriends Earl Hulfnockel and Price Navanere have more in common than just their comparable age — they are both World War II veterans.
Although modest about their wartime service — having not seen the kind of battle action typically depicted in World War II movies — they each have stories to tell for those willing to listen.
And anyone present Thursday evening at the Crowder College Elsie E. Plaster Community Center would have had just such an opportunity to hear those stories, as more than 120 area residents — many of them veterans — showed up for a special event put on by Neosho’s Clark Funeral Home.
Hosted at their own expense, Clark presented Vol. 1 of “Lest They Be Forgotten,” a powerful film documentary on the June 6,1944, D-Day landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.
According to Tina Hierholzer of Clark Funeral Home, they first heard of the opportunity to show the film while at a convention last summer of Selected Independent Funeral Homes, an exclusive organization with membership on an invitation-only basis.
“They introduced this to us as something that was available to members of the organization so we decided to go for it,” Hierholzer said.
Although the acclaimed film in itself was well-worth attending, the evening held even more in store, making it truly a night for the veterans.
Helping themselves to sandwiches and other hors d’ouvres provided by Clark’s, the public filed in to Crowder’s Longwell Museum before the showing, where the entire brightly-lit room had been decorated with memorabilia from the old Camp Crowder — a place that many of the veterans present had served in their younger days.
Amidst photographs, albums, glass displays, old army gear and even a miniature replica of the now-extinct training and former POW camp, veterans swapped stories and memories with each other and with the public — which was made up of both young and old.
Hulfnockel and Navanere were only two of many former servicemen present, members of a fading generation.
“I’m quite a fella to go out to some place and do new things and that’s why I invited this man,” Navanere said, looking up at Hulfnockel.
A veteran of the U.S. 86th Infantry Division, Hulfnockel served from 1942 to 1946, spending time in both Europe and the Pacific. He was in Heidleburgh, Germany, when his unit heard the news that the Nazi Third Reich had surrendered.
“I was up all night that night,” he remembered with a faint smile and giving a knowing wink. “Everybody was so excited and celebrating — I mean really celebrating.”
Navanere had worked in a shipyard just before the war began, refitting merchant ships into fighting vessels. And that’s where he lost sight in his right eye, when a piece of steel flew up and struck him as he hammered on a cargo door. Although half-blind, the Navy still took him in when he enlisted, making sure he went into the SEABEES because of his shipyard experience.
But when he wanted to go overseas and help fight the Japanese, however, the Navy said no, pointing to his bad eye.
And so, Navanere spent his wartime service stateside, involved with the home-front infrastructure, and helping the war effort in a much-needed way. Some of his time was even spent on the supply end at Camp Crowder, assigned to the “old June barn” as he called it.
While the scenery at Crowder looks much different than when Navanere was there, and nearly all of the old army buildings are now gone, Thursday night’s event at least afforded him and the many other veterans present a chance to get together and reminiscence about times long past and long remembered.
After the hors’douvres and social time among the Camp Crowder memorabilia, the public was treated to a special performance in the Plaster auditorium by the 399th Army Band, brought in from Fort Leonard Wood.
Playing both patriotic and traditional army tunes such as “God Bless America,” “America the Beautiful,” “This is My Country” and “Garry Owen,” the band set the right mood for the upcoming film about one of the most stirring and important days of the war and in U.S. history.
The film, along with the Camp Crowder displays and army band, made for a memorable event, with Neosho Mayor Howard Birdsong even signing a resolution marking the occasion and proclaiming Oct. 6, 2005 “as a day to honor and celebrate the lives of veterans in our community.”
Which is pretty much what Clark Funeral Home had in mind when they planned the evening, according to Hierholzer.
“As opposed to just having the film, we decided to incorporate and have the band and everything else in place and make tonight more a salute to the veterans,” she said.
Mission accomplished.
