Veterans Who Share Friendships Honored At Senior Center
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The Presbyterian Village North senior living facility in Dallas honors its residents who served in the military every year on Veterans Day. This year they're honoring employees who served as well and they're finding the veterans have ties that cross generations.
James Clutts lives in the senior living facility. Nicholas Holland works there. Both men are veterans and share a friendship.
"I didn't have the same kinds of things he had and he didn't have the same kind of things I had," Clutts said. "So we swap stories."
Clutts served at the end of World War II navigating B-29 bombers.
"I was flying over the battleship Missouri when MacArthur accepted the surrender," Clutts said.
Holland also knows the sting of battle. He was on an aircraft carrier that launched the first wave of attacks in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
"We were right in the thick of it on the boat," he said. "I was confused but then I was like 'this is what's got to be done at the time, as a patriot,' " Holland said.
He witness first-hand the personal toll of combat on his comrades.
"You see that guy at 8 a.m. for breakfast and then you won't see that guy for lunch," Holland said. "And you're kind a like, 'OK maybe he's coming back for dinner' but then you find out that, you know, he's done in the cargo bay down in a casket or he's not gonna make it back."
Clutts saw the devastation of an entire country.
"We were flying around and over Tokyo Bay," Clutts said. "You just can't believe how much devastation there was. Tokyo was just obliterated! Everything was just... just... nothing was standing. Everything was gone."
During ceremonies Friday, Presbyterian Village North honored generations of warriors on Veterans Day. Even divided by generations, the veterans are bound by a common link to service and sacrifice.
"I always talk to them around here," Holland said. "And hold a little conversation and steal a little bit of their time and learn what it was like during their era just as much as they want to know what I've seen."
"We immediately were friends," Clutts said of Holland. "I think he enjoyed meeting me; and I certainly enjoyed meeting him."
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