PAGE 2A: HERITAGE 2013 PRESS & DAKOTAN n MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

BY KELLY HERTZkelly.hertz@yankton.net

his was an impossiblejob.

That’s the best wayto sum up the Press &Dakotan’s special “Her-itage” edition salutingthe men and women in

our military.The task could be considered impos-

sible because there is no way to trulydo the topic of military service anysense of total justice — not in this lim-ited space.

The truth is, any space that wecould muster wouldn’t be nearlyenough to fully examine the heritage ofmilitary service among the people ofthis region.

The Heritage edition you are readingtoday was originally conceived whenwe noted just how quickly the genera-tion of World War II veterans are leavingus. Next year will be the 70th anniver-sary of the D-Day invasion, meaningthat every solider who took part in thisepic operation would have to be at leastin their late 80s. It was a sobering real-ization.

For those of us of a certain middleage, the concept of life without theseWorld War II veterans playing an inte-gral part was unthinkable and mournful.Those veterans have always been therefor us. They have always been the pil-lars of the society we knew. Their ex-ploits — real or fictionalized — werealways part of our television and ourmovies. In some ways, World War II wasas fresh to us as it was to those who ac-tually waged that war, or endured it onthe home front.

But that generation is fading fast.And they are taking with them some ex-traordinary experiences.

And that’s how this year’s Heritageproject was born. It quickly expandedto include all veterans of all eras, fortheir service to the nation was no lessimportant and just as essential.

But the end result is impossible. Forevery story or account we have in thesepages, there are countless other experi-ences that go unreported. They may bepart of family lore, or they may be se-crets that are rarely revealed. We wouldlove to tap into those, but the con-straints are too many, the time and

space far too limited.What we offer today is a very broad

sampling. There are stories of veterans,and there are stories of projects tied tothe military. There are first-hand ac-counts written by veterans, and thereare other accounts offered up fromreaders.

Also, we were fortunate to recruitthe services of Yankton resident DougSall, who authored several profiles forthis section, plus wrote a first-hand ac-count of his experience during the 1962Cuban missile crisis. Many of these pro-files are tied to books that veteranshave written about their war experi-ences. Most of these books are stillavailable, usually through local li-braries, and offer rich first-hand ac-counts of ordinary people doing whatreally were extraordinary things, oftenunder deadly circumstances.

The accounts in this section rangefrom World War II to Afghanistan. Dur-ing this process, we deliberately choseto, as a rule, exclude accounts from be-fore World War II, which was a painfuldecision in some ways. We needed toset some parameters on this over-whelming task, and we concluded thatsince the World War I vets are now allgone, we would have to leave thosetales to other historical sources. (Butthey really are worth seeking out, if youhave the time, especially since 2014 willbe the centennial of the start of thatGreat War, which had such a profoundinfluence on the 20th century.)

This truly was an impossible task,and we do not pretend that it is all en-compassing or even broadly touches allthe bases.

Instead, we look at it as a beginning. Perhaps these two sections can

serve as a beginning of a dialogue be-tween veterans and those who do notknow their stories. It can be a point ofsharing, with the past informing the fu-ture, with those who served offeringtheir reasons about why such service isso important to all of us.

We hope you enjoy this section,and we hope you take the time to askveterans to tell their stories. That’swhere the real education begins.

You can follow Kelly Hertz on Twit-ter at twitter.com/kelly_hertz/. Discussthis story at www.yankton.net/.

Introduction:A Look At AnImpossible Job

T

A photo at the centerpiece of the militarymonument on the grounds of the YanktonCounty Government Center in the sum-mer of 2013. Many county governmentsites across South Dakota have similarmonuments honoring our veterans andsoldiers, as do numerous communitiesthroughout the region. (Kelly Hertz/P&D)

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Dr. David J. Abbott Otolaryngologist

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Dr. Joseph Boudreau Urology

Dr. Christopher Hathaway Urology

Dr. Thomas Posch Diagnostic Radiology

Dr. Karen Dickes Ophthalmology

Dr. Paula Hicks Ophthalmology

Dr. Kent M. Patrick Spine

Dr. William E. Cohen Interventional Pain Mgmt.

Dr. Don Swift II Orthopedics

Dr. Micah M. Likness Otolaryngologist

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The Physicians and staff at Lewis & Clark Specialty Hospital would like to recognize and thank all of the men and women

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