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Actor donates Thanksgiving meal to Lincoln veterans

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A Lee Enterprises, Incorporated newspaper. Majority shareholder: David Hoffmann, Hoffmann Media Group.

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Actor donates Thanksgiving meal to Lincoln veterans

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Residents of a Lincoln veterans home will receive an extra special meal this Thanksgiving.

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Gary Sinise

Courtesy photo

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Nebraska veterans of courage, commitment and strength

Nebraska beet fields and Vietnam battlefields launched Marty Ramirez's activist voice

Marty Ramirez, who lives in Lincoln, will be in his hometown of Scottsbluff on Veterans Day to unveil the final phase of the Chicano/Mexican-American Veterans Monument engraved with names of some 600 who served from the area.

Courtesy photo

Marty Ramirez rarely had the nightmares or flashbacks of combat that have haunted many other Vietnam veterans.

In the more than 50 years since a rocket blast nearly killed him 10 days before his tour was to end, the Purple Heart recipient barely even discussed the war with his wife and their seven children.

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Marty Ramirez in Vietnam circa 1968. Notice the rosary beads and the letters “NEBR” for Nebraska on his helmet.

MARTY RAMIREZ

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Marty Ramirez served during the Vietnam War. His father fought in the early 1900s with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.

MARTY RAMIREZ

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Marty Ramirez at Fort Polk, Louisiana, in 1967.

MARTY RAMIREZ, courtesy photo

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Marty Ramirez is shown during the Vietnam War.

MARTY RAMIREZ, courtesy photo

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A group of U.S. Army soldiers in Vietnam in 1968.

MARTY RAMIREZ

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Marty Ramirez crossing a river in Vietnam while in the Army in 1968.

MARTY RAMIREZ

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Marty Ramirez talks to a reporter before the start of a meeting at Fremont High School on July 29, 2008, in Fremont, Nebraska. The Fremont City Council heard public input on a proposed ordinance prohibiting the harboring, hiring or renting to undocumented immigrants.

KENT SIEVERS, Omaha WORLD-HERALD file photo

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Marty Ramirez speaks during a Capitol press conference by Latino, Black and white community leaders in 2008, in Lincoln. Sitting is Ben Salazar.

Omaha WORLD-HERALD file photo

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Marty Ramirez served during the Vietnam War.

MARTY RAMIREZ

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Omaha WWII vet, 103, who built bridges across the Rhine has 'just kept going'

Walter Coy, 103, was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1944 and left as a sergeant. He still lives in the Omaha home that he built himself in the 1950s.

ANNA REED, THE WORLD-HERALD

Drive by Walter Coy’s South Omaha house on a summer day, and you may catch the World War II Army veteran cutting the grass in his front yard.

Now 103 years old, he’s been on Earth for every Veterans Day since the first one (then called Armistice Day) to celebrate the end of World War I in 1918.

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Walter Coy carries a shadowbox with his military honors that his daughter put together.

ANNA REED, THE WORLD-HERALD

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The 1944 draft letter for Coy, now 103 years old. 

ANNA REED, THE WORLD-HERALD

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Photos from Walter Coy's time in the military hang on his basement wall. Coy, 103, still lives in the Omaha home that he built himself in the 1950s.

ANNA REED, THE WORLD-HERALD

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A photo of Coy, his first wife and their daughter, in his bedroom.

ANNA REED, THE WORLD-HERALD

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Ex-Central High football star piloted helicopters in Vietnam

Vince Orduña, Vietnam War veteran, poses for a photo at the Memorial Day parade in Omaha on May 28, 2021.

VINCE ORDUÑA

This Veterans Day, odds are good you’ll find Vince Orduña puttering in the backyard of his modest Plattsmouth home.

If he’s not chopping away at a chunk of wood or sprinkling feed for the chickens, he’ll probably be kicking back in a lounge chair next to a bubbling koi pond he built himself, inside a screened patio, where his seven cats roam free.

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Vince Orduña’s photo from Omaha Central High School.

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Vince Orduña is shown in August of 1968.

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Vince Orduña competes for Central High during a track meet in 1967.

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Vincent Orduña, Vietnam War Army veteran from Plattsmouth, with his younger brother, Paul.

PAUL ORDUÑA

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Vincent Orduña, Vietnam War Army veteran from Plattsmouth, with his brother, Paul and father, John.

PAUL ORDUÑA

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PAUL ORDUÑA Vincent Orduña, Vietnam War Army veteran from Plattsmouth, shown in his Texas State Patrol uniform.

PAUL ORDUÑA

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Vince Orduña, a Vietnam War Army veteran from Plattsmouth, is greeted by his family after his return from a Vietnam veterans flight of honor in 2017. Pictured are, from left, stepson, Isaac; brothers, Paul and John Jr.; sister-in-law, Sharon; Vince; mother, Doris; sister, Juanita; and wife, Marcella.

PAUL ORDUÑA

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Typhoon capped Nebraska merchant mariner's WWII service

Bob Wiegand, 96, at his home in Cedar Bluffs. He served in the Merchant Marine in World War II.

ANNA REED, THE WORLD-HERALD

In the waning days of World War II, Merchant Marine seaman Bob Wiegand served in the engine room of a ship convoying war supplies to American service members fighting Japan in the Far East.

He endured boot camp, wore a uniform and saluted officers like other members of the U.S. armed forces. He bore the risk of sudden attack by kamikaze aircraft or submarine-launched torpedoes.

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Bob Wiegand tells of when he had to man the engine room of a ship by himself during a typhoon in September 1945. “I stayed on duty all through that storm, probably 30 hours,” he said. “I had to keep turning valves. Otherwise, you’d blow the whole ship up.”

photos ANNA REED, THE WORLD-HERALD

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Bob Wiegand, 96, a member of the Merchant Marine in WWII, has a tattoo of an anchor on his arm that he got when he joined in 1944.

ANNA REED, THE WORLD-HERALD

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Nebraska nurse practitioner aided women, babies during 24-year Air Force career

Maj. Mary Smith of Howells, Nebraska, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2008.

COURTESY MARY SMITH

During 24 years in Air Force medicine, Mary Smith, a retired Air Force nurse practitioner, had put in many long, hard days.

Never before, though, had one ended with crowds of sign-wielding strangers — and a few friends — cheering for her and for her 134 fellow Nebraska veterans, all of them women.

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Mary Smith of Howells, Nebraska, now works as a nurse practitioner in Norfolk.

COURTESY MARY SMITH

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Mary Smith of Howells, Nebraska, when she enlisted in the Air Force in 1988.

COURTESY MARY SMITH

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Maj. Mary Smith of Howells, Nebraska, with her husband, Command Chief Master Sgt. Martin Smith, on his retirement in 2011. She retired a year later.

COURTESY MARY SMITH

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Honoring Our Heroes: Nebraska veterans and their service

Watch now: Veterans honored during parade in downtown Lincoln

Lincoln residents lined K Street on Sunday to celebrate veterans during the city's third annual Veterans Day Parade, which included five Lincoln high school marching bands and more than 50 other local groups.

Former city councilman and veteran Roy Christensen said this year's theme — Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans — aimed to "honor those who were not honored then."

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Photos: Hundreds honor veterans during Lincoln parade

Veterans parade, 11.7

A giant inflatable bald eagle is pulled down K Street past the Capitol Building Sunday during the third annual Lincoln Veterans Day Parade.

EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star

Veterans parade, 11.7

Vice Admiral Walter E. “Ted” Carter Jr., the University of Nebraska President, and his wife, Lynda, ride in the third annual Lincoln Veterans Day Parade on Sunday.

EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star

Veterans parade, 11.7

Spectators holding American flags watch the third annual Lincoln Veterans Day Parade on Sunday at the Capitol Building.

EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star

Veterans parade, 11.7

Rick Pollen sits with his wife, Emily (not pictured), while he watches the third annual Lincoln Veterans Day Parade on Sunday at the Capitol Building. "We love America and want to support the veterans" they said.

EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star

Veterans parade, 11.7

The Sons of the American Revolution march with the American and Nebraska flags in the third annual Lincoln Veterans Day Parade on Sunday at the Capitol.

EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star

Reach the writer at jebbers@journalstar.com

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IrelandUruguay, Eastern Republic ofUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofViet Nam, Socialist Republic ofWallis and Futuna IslandsWestern SaharaYemenZambia, Republic ofZimbabwe

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