Veteran sprucing up Blue Star Highway markers across Nebraska

Walter Coy, one of Nebraska's oldest living veterans at 103, likely won't stray far from his Omaha home on Veterans Day. But he remains active. “All I can say is, I kept living. Just kept going.”

On Veterans Day, Marty Ramirez will be at his childhood stomping grounds to unveil the final phase of the Chicano/Mexican-American Veterans Monument honoring Scottsbluff-area Hispanics who served.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Vince Orduña confronted the memories of soldiers he knew who died fighting in Southeast Asia, and forgave himself for surviving while they didn’t.

Bob Wiegand served on a ship convoying war supplies to American service members. He bore the risk of sudden attack by kamikaze aircraft or submarine-launched torpedoes. It was dangerous work.

After earning her master’s — specializing in women’s health — Mary Smith was ready to deploy. She got the call in 2008, when she was sent to Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, for five months. 

The Rev. Suzanne How, pastor of Immanuel State Line Lutheran Church in Wymore, Nebraska, presided over the September services for Cpl. Daegan Page, a Marine from Omaha who was killed in Afghanistan.

Four years ago, 93-year-old Robert Holts, the last surviving member of the Tuskegee Airmen in Nebraska, was grand marshal of the Defenders of Freedom Veterans Day parade. Holts died in February 2021.