Bonnie Denzel gave the invocation and Kathy Austvold led us in song. Keith Olson introduced his son, Brandon, about to return to college, while Wally Cole introduced his long-time friend, Jim King, and Wally's son-in-law, Zach Stock, a chiropractic student in his tenth trimester. We also greeted Pepe, who showed up wearing shorts on a yet another very cold day. President Steve presented Brad Hoganson with his badge. Randy Kempfer encouraged all of us to be prepared to sign-up to help at the Otter Orations Speech Tournament scheduled for Saturday, January 27, 2018, at which we will be manning the concession booth and helping to hand out some awards; a sign-up sheet will be circulated at our next meeting. Lori Larson passed around a sign-up sheet for the social at the Country Inn on Thursday, January 11th, and you can also register to attend on the internet. We will be playing what they call "Pub Trivia" and celebrating with Sunrise Rotarians their 25 years of existence, having been chartered on February 20, 1992.
President Steve led off the bragging, having celebrated his and Sue's 50th wedding anniversary the prior week, making a contribution of like amount to The Rotary Foundation to commemorate their milestone. Mitzi Moe donated for missing "a lot of meetings," while Steve Andrews was happy to have had his wife home from teaching in New York City for the holidays. Mark Bring paid a scooter buck. Wally Cole announced that his business had become, as of the first of the year, a teaching facility for Northwestern Health Services University and that he was excited to have his aforementioned son-in-law as an intern. Stan Carignan appreciated our support of the efforts of Habitat for Humanity, with several large donations from club members, living up to Rotary's motto of "Service Above Self." Before moving into the program we also collectively answered Mike Wollan's question as to when the NDSU Bison were going to play their championship game -- by the time you read this they have won yet another one!
Wally Cole then introduced our program, Dr. Jack Pearson, to talk about his experiences in Vietnam as an Army doctor. He recalled kissing his 16 month old daughter and pregnant wife goodbye in 1968, arriving in the country in September of 1968. Vietnam was a beautiful country. He was assigned to an armor and tank division, which consisted of about 850 soldiers, with 36 medics, four armored personnel carriers and two jeeps; he also served surrounding units and for a time was stationed at a Vietnamese hospital, where it was customary to have two persons per bed; no food was served to the patients (family members stayed on the grounds outside and provided the food). Jack's patients included not only the troops but civilians, seeing parts of the country that were not war torn at all. He spearheaded an effort to provide supplies to an orphanage headed by a Catholic nun whom he met in November of 1968. From his experience, most of the civilians wanted the aid of the U.S. and did not want to be communists.
He spent a lot of time in helicopters and his best friend was a helicopter pilot who himself survived being shot down twice in three days. The helicopters that were used in country were the Huey, the Chinook, the Cobra (attack), as well as a light observation one. In the summer of 1969, Jack was flying in and out of the intense battle that has come to be known as "Hamburger Hill;" he also spent some time on the two hospital ships that alternated ferrying the wounded away from the battle area, each with 500 beds to provide care to the injured. In reflecting on the end result, Jack felt the lack of will by the U.S., the corrupt South Vietnamese government, and the fact it was a political conflict all had an impact.
Thanks Wally and Jack for bringing us a great program!