21-quilt salute for community veterans

Monday, November 15, 2021
Eighteen of the 21 recipients pose together after being honored Saturday afternoon with Quilts of Honor presented at the New Hope Fellowship Church north of Greencastle. They include, not in order, Lloyd Vermillion, Scott Rogers, James Cromwell, Jerry Lewis, Richard Malicoat, Roger Riggen, Robert Miles, Gene Schlegel, James Childers, Jonathan Blue, Thomas Mishler, Larry Snider, Jennifer Jennings, Perry Jurgens, James Grimes, Walter Pate Jr., Jerry Ensor and Michelle Roach.
Banner Graphic/ERIC BERNSEE

The amazingly talented ladies of One Stitch at a Time Quilt Çlub offered a 21-quilt salute to Putnam County veterans Saturday afternoon.

The women wrapped various Vietnam vets in their quilts. Honored a number of surprised and delighted Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipients.

And for the first time in the seven-year history of the Quilts of Honor presentation, two female veterans were among the 21 honored with handmade quilts.

Jennifer Jennings (left), a retired Air Force master sergeant, and Marine Cpl. Roach are the first two female recipients of the Quilts of Honor presented each November by the ladies of the One Stitch at a Time Quilt Club.
Banner Graphic/ERIC BERNSEE

Air Force MSgt. Jennifer Jennings and Marine Cpl. Michelle Roach broke the gender barrier Saturday, receiving Quilts of Honor along with heaps of praise and hugs of admiration as the two female recipients among 96 now honored.

Jennings joined the Air Force in 2000 and was sent to Monterrey, Calif., where she studied linguistics, specifically Arabic, a language which is native to the countries of the Arab League as well as some parts of Asia, Africa and Europe.

“I was in college at the time,” Jennings said of her enlistment after the program at New Hope Fellowship Church north of Greencastle, telling the Banner Graphic,. “My sister was in Iraq and I was thinking, ‘Why am I not doing this?’”

After numerous National Security Agency assignments, Jennings was sent to Afghanistan. Her intel detail and diligence was credited with 54 terrorist kills before she was later assigned to provide intel to four different four-star generals. She was limited in what she could say about such things.

With it being only about a year since she left the service after 20 years, Jennings is still finding it odd to be back in civilian life.

“It’s just so hard getting used to being a veteran,” she said at the post-Veterans Day program. “It’s like we’re the president once a year.”

Jennings, who grew up in LaPorte and Crawfordsville, now lives in Greencastle with husband Kendrick and two daughters -- the reasons she said she retired.

“I’m a chicken farmer now,” said Jennings, even though she’s not a colonel. “I love my chickens.”

Cpl. Roach, meanwhile, joined the Marine Corps in 2016, calling it “the best decision of my life.”

After basic training at Paris Island, she received instruction on being a motor transport operator.

Roach’s four-year hitch ended in 2020 after stints in Okinawa and The Philippines.

Word is she’s considering re-enlisting in the Marines. “I’m thinking about it,” she admitted as the honorees assembled for a group photo.

Other veterans, meanwhile, were thinking about their past service, sharing stories worthy of anyone’s time and attention when they have a minute.

Drafted into the Army in February 1952, Sgt. Bob Miles was as an infantryman who was sent right to the frontlines in Korea for 21 months.

Forget what you know about Korea from “M*A*S*H,” veterans like Miles will tell you.

“I really didn’t enjoy it,” said Miles, who rose to the rank of sergeant before coming home to Bainbridge in 1953. “I had my 21st birthday there and two weeks later I was on the front line and pretty much stayed there the whole time.”

His son, Robert Kell Miles, tells the Banner Graphic, “He is lucky to have survived his deployment. My parents later raised five children and have dozens and dozens of descendants.”

Spec. James Childers, who was drafted into the Army in August 1971, served two tours of duty in Vietnam as the door gunner on medical evac helicopters before re-enlisting to become a sniper. He served in 16 different countries working with special ops.

“During my time in the service I really didn’t think I’d be alive today to talk to you about it.”

Yet Childers had one of the best stories of the day in sharing a stateside encounter.

He was off-duty in San Diego and while running along, he knocked over actress Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia herself of “Star Wars” fame.

“Mark Hamill comes running down the aisle, laughing his butt off,” Childers continues.

Next thing Childers knew he was in the presence of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Carrie’s celebrity parents, and they all “sat down and had a nice steak dinner. That’s my story ...”

Cpl. Gene Schlegel didn’t have it that easy after being drafted into the Army in 1952, even though the war in Korea ended before he was scheduled to go.

A communications specialist, Schlegel got blood poisoning that apparently came from his tonsils.

Next thing he knew, a platoon sergeant sat him down and yanked his tonsils out with a pair of pliers.

Surviving that and back home from service, the tonsil-less Schlegel put in for a job with a new Greencastle company, got the position and spent the rest of his career at IBM.

Sgt. Larry Snider, who was drafted into the Army in May 1968, earned both the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for exploits in Vietnam. He summed up the feelings of many veterans.

“It’s not easy for me to stand before you here,” Snider said, “because I remember all those who can’t.”

The 2021 Quilt of Honor recipients, in the order they were presented, are:

-- Seaman James Grimes, Navy, enlisted 1961. Served as radio/sonar operator.

-- Spec. 4 Lloyd Vermillion, Army, enlisted 1970. Served as supply specialist.

-- MSgt. Jennifer Jennings, Air Force, enlisted 2000. Served as intelligence officer.

-- Sgt. Robert Miles, Army, drafted 1952. Served in the infantry on the front line in Korea.

-- Yeoman 3rd Class Petty Officer Roger Riggen, Navy, enlisted 1969. Served as machinist mate.

-- Spec. James Childers, Army, drafted 1971. Served as door gunner on medical evac helicopters.

-- Cpl. Gene Schlegel, Army, drafted 1952. Served as communications specialist.

-- Seaman Perry Jurgens, Navy, joined 1981. Served as small arms and ordnance handler.

-- 2nd Class Petty Officer Thomas Mishler, Navy, joined 1973. Served as boiler operator, engineer and firefighter.

-- Spec. 4 Richard Terrell, Army, drafted 1970. Served in the infantry.

-- 2nd Class Petty Officer Jonathan Blue, Navy, joined 1969. Served as riverboat platoon captain.

-- Chief Petty Officer Richard Malicoat, Navy, joined 1957. Served as equipment operator. Later enlisted in the Seabees in 1968 as a heavy equipment operator.

-- Cpl. Michelle Roach, Marines, joined 2016. Served as a motor transport operator.

-- 3rd Class Petty Officer Walter Pate Jr., Navy, joined 1964. Served in air flight control.

-- 2nd Class Petty Officer Jerry Ensor, Navy, joined 1958. Served as an electric counter measures operator.

-- SSgt. Scott Rogers, Army, joined 1982. Served as artillery man, cannon crewman.

-- Spec. 5 James Cromwell, Army, joined 1968. Served as communications specialist.

-- Sgt. Jerry Lewis, Marines, enlisted 1963. Served as an auto mechanic.

-- Sgt. Larry Snider, Army, drafted 1968. Served in the infantry.

-- Robert Nichols, Marines, joined 1968. Served as an artillery man.

-- John Wood, Air Force (U.S. Army Air Corps), drafted 1945. Served in radio repair.

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