Freedom Stitchers of Iowa honors veterans with handmade quilts

MARION — As the husband of a woman who makes quilts for veterans, Ron Kruse says he has witnessed many emotional — often tearful — ceremonies in which the quilts are presented as a way of saying 'thank you for your service.'

On Aug. 5, Kruse, 72, of Marion, is going to find out what it's like to be on the receiving end.

Kruse, along with two other Linn County veterans — Jack Pettee, 76, of Marion, and Roger Opfer, 72, of Center Point — is to be honored during a private Quilt of Valor presentation conducted by the Freedom Stitchers of Iowa.

All three men were nominated by Karen Kruse, 75, Ron's wife and a member of the Freedom Stitchers, the local chapter of the Quilts of Valor Foundation, a national organization based in Winterset, Iowa, that provides comforting and healing quilts to service members and veterans touched by war.

In the two years Freedom Stitchers has been operating, the group has grown to include 75 members who have produced more than 320 quilts, said Elayne Gassett, a longarm coordinator for Quilts of Valor and the founder of the Freedom Stitchers. Nationally, about 7,500 quilters are involved in the organization, which was founded in 2003. To date, more than 159,000 quilts have been awarded to veterans during ceremonies held every two to three months.

Typically, quilts are made in advance and kept for future presentations, but those being presented to Kruse, Pettee and Opfer all were handmade by Karen Kruse.

RON KRUSE

Ron Kruse was drafted into the Vietnam War when he was 20 and assigned to be a combat medic at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. Due to his poor eyesight, he eventually was reassigned to be a medical specialist at Fort Ord General Hospital in Monterey Bay, Calif., where his primary job was to drive ambulances to the Amputee Center in San Fransisco, he said.

Although Ron Kruse didn't spend much time physically in Vietnam, he did take two trips to retrieve sick and wounded soldiers from the battlefield and fly them to hospitals in South Korea and Japan.

'I was extremely lucky,' he said. 'The life expectancy for a combat medic was 18 minutes. ... I always considered myself lucky to never be shot at.'

JACK PETTEE

Jack Pettee enlisted in the Army in 1961 at age 20 and served nine years in operations and intelligence during the Vietnam War. Early in his career, Pettee tracked movements of the North Vietnamese Army and enemy losses for the 25th Infantry Division and was awarded the Bronze Star for notifying a commanding general of suspicious movement of the Viet Cong toward an army brigade, he said.

'I was told I probably saved a whole lot of American lives,' he said. 'It humbled me. I didn't expect it at all.'

Later, he worked as an intelligence analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which awarded him the Joint Service Commendation Medal, and eventually was promoted to Sargeant First Class doing strategic intelligence, keeping track of Soviet activities and the Warsaw Pact, he said.

'It was fascinating work,' he said. 'I had so many security clearances that the fact that I even had them was confidential.'

ROGER OPFER

Roger Opfer served in the Korean War for a little more than a year. He enlisted in the Army when he was 18 years old and was assigned to be a mechanic on tanks and other vehicles in the Demilitarized Zone, but the Army was so 'short-handed because everybody was being sent to Vietnam' that he 'had to do everything,' he said. That included guarding the North Korean border.

'We were there in case North Koreans decided to invade South Korea,' he said. 'We had to detain North Koreans and fight to our death to give people in South Korea time to get the canons and everything.'

While guarding the border, Opfer said he caught a North Korean coming into the Army's compound when it was 'pitch dark' outside. His rifle had night vision so he could scan the area he was guarding.

'It certainly was not a stroke of luck that I caught him, but I did,' he said.

'QUITE AN HONOR'

Opfer said he is honored to receive a quilt, but that it's hard to accept knowing how many soldiers died.

'A lot of my friends got killed,' he said, choking up. 'I guess I'd rather have their family receive this instead of me. I accept it and I say thank you, but it doesn't feel right.'

Pettee, who has terminal lung cancer and has been told he may have a year left to live, is equally honored.

'It's not something that everybody just gets,' he said. 'I consider it quite an honor.'

During Quilt of Valor ceremonies, recipients' names are called individually and their quilts are wrapped around them in a hug, properly welcoming them home, Gassett said.

'They're humbled, proud and grateful,' she added. 'When they're with their peers and recognized for their sacrifice, it means a lot. It means so much to the veteran to know that we care. If our veterans had not gone out and did what they did, we wouldn't be here today.

'It means a lot to me to have that freedom,' she continued. 'The least I can do is make a quilt.'

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