By Alan Van Ormer
Tribune editor

Four Dell Rapids World War II veterans are receiving a sort of Veterans Day gift when they climb aboard a plane and fly to Washington, D. C. on the Honor Flight on Friday and Saturday.
Merlin Schmidt, 87, said it would be interesting to see other veterans. “Some units never had a reunion,” he said. “We were out 41 years before we had a reunion.”
Joining Schmidt on the Honor Flight will be Howard Ellingson, Marvin Hanson and Arthur Nebben. The group will see the World War II Memorial along with other memorials honoring veterans over the two-day period.
Hanson, 90, served in France and the Philippine Islands from August 1942 to Jan. 1, 1947 in the U. S. Army. He worked with gas line distribution. Hanson remembers fixing broken pipelines in swamps and getting gas from ships to the front lines.
“I look forward to seeing the World War II Memorial,” he said. “I suppose it could be an emotional experience. I feel honored to go on it. I feel it is something we earned.”
Nebben, 91, served in the U. S. Army from 1942 and 1945 and spent time in Africa and Italy. He and Schmidt went in the same day. Nebben was with the 5th Army working with the Signal Corps providing communications for the troops.
He feels it would be good to see the World War II Memorial.
“If they put it up 60 years ago, we could have enjoyed it,” he said. “They built many of them before they built this one.”
Schmidt also served between 1942 and 1945 in the U. S. Army. He was in an anti-aircraft unit in Africa and later in Sicily, Italy and Corsica. Schmidt was on the third wave of the invasion of Sicily.
“We had virtually no resistance when we landed,” he recalled. “The stories I heard one half mile down the beach, the Germans sent them back into the ocean.”
After the invasion, Schmidt’s unit guarded airstrips in Corsica and Italy.
“Initially, I wasn’t going to go, but my family talked me into it,” he said.
Ellingson, 85, was also hesitant to go at the beginning.
“I talked to some other guys that had been there and after talking to them decided to go,” he said. “I have no idea what to expect when I get there.”
Ellingson served in the U. S. Army from 1942-1944. He served on Leyte Island and the Villa Verde-Santa Fe area in northern Luzon in the Philippines. During his time there, Ellingson worked at headquarters as a company runner.
The first Honor Flight took place in 2005 when six small planes flew out of Springfield, Ohio taking 12 World War II veterans to visit the World War II Memorial in Washington, D. C.
Earl Morse, a physician assistant and retired Air Force Captain, started the Honor Flight program to honor the veterans who he had cared for almost three decades.
Honor Flight of South Dakota is an affiliate of the National Honor Flight Network and is a non-profit corporation in South Dakota.
The statewide project is open to World War II veterans in South Dakota and surrounding areas.
Each flight costs approximately $120,000 including airfare, bus transportation, hotel and food. The cost to the veteran is free.
Earlier this year, the Dell Rapids American Legion hosted a breakfast, raising $3,000, for the veterans from Dell Rapids to travel to Washington, D. C.
Donations can be accepted online at www.honorflightsd.org or made at First Premier Bank in South Dakota or can be sent to the Honor Flight of South Dakota at P.O. Box 947, Sioux Falls, S. D., 57104.