by Dale Reeves
Story Pastor
Jerry Nelson has been a member of Christ’s Church since 2004, and started serving as a greeter for worship services just one year later, in 2005. If you attend our 9:00 am church service and enter the auditorium through the doors on the right, no doubt Jerry has greeted you with a warm handshake or a hug as he handed you your communion cup. Jerry is passionate about Jesus, his wife Gloria, caring about other people, and America. Jerry is a Veteran of the United States Navy.
Recently he was asked if he’d like to travel on an Honor Flight to Washington D.C. to visit the array of military memorials that are located there. The inaugural Honor Flight took place in May 2005. Six small planes flew out of Springfield, OH, taking twelve World War II Veterans on a journey to visit their memorial in D.C. Since that first trip, more than 295,000 Veterans have gone on an Honor Flight. To find out more information, and sign up to accompany a Veteran, visit https://www.honorflight.org.
Retired from General Electric, Jerry Nelson attends a monthly luncheon with other retirees. At one of those lunches, when GE retiree Sherri Giver saw the Navy hat that Jerry was wearing that day, she asked him if he’d ever been on an Honor Flight. She told him she would be happy to sponsor him as his “guardian.” I asked Sherri what motivated her to ask Jerry, and she responded, “Since I had been on one previous Honor Flight, I wanted another Veteran to experience this one special day. As GE retirees, we always recognize our Veterans at the meeting closest to Veterans Day.”
A Navy Man
Jerry joined the Navy Reserves in high school in 1956. After his graduation from high school, in 1958, he was sent to Norfolk, Virginia, where he served as a corpsman aboard an “attack personnel destroyer,” the USS Horace A. Bass. Jerry sailed on that ship for a few months. He served in the U.S. Navy for three years. His last duty station was in Boca Chica Key, Florida. He was a fleet corpsman there, attached to fighter squadron VFA-101 (they were called “Grim Reapers” because of their combat record from WW II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War). Jerry served in the dispensary there, and in 1961 his squadron was involved in the Bay of Pigs crisis in Cuba.
Jerry recalls fishing in Key West and diving off 12-Mile Reef. It was also during this time that Jerry met his wife Gloria, who had grown up in Key West. Jerry shares,
“During my early years in the service, I had fallen away from Christ. I was set up with a blind date with Gloria. It was love at first sight! But she gave me the stipulation that if we were going to continue dating, I would have to attend her church. It was because of Gloria that I came back to Christ.”
They were married in Key West, Florida, on April 19, 1961, and 64 years later, they are still married! Jerry comments,
“Some people have said to me, ‘That’s unusual to be married that long,’ to which I reply, ‘It’s not unusual if you’ve got the right woman!’”
Honor to Whom Honor Is Due
The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 13:7, “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed” (ESV). The Honor Flight Network’s mission is one of gratitude: “For their service, sacrifice, and selflessness, we proudly celebrate America’s Veterans with a day of honor in our nation’s capital.”
Jerry’s guardian, Sherri Giver, reflects on the Honor Flight, “There were so many special moments that day. We picked Jerry up at 4:00 am that morning and he had stories to share about his service years, meeting his lovely wife, and telling me the scary story about when he had a heart attack—and was technically dead—but could see what was happening in the operating room. I knew he was the right person to go on the flight with me!”
There were 88 veterans on the flight, each with their own guardians, and they departed at 7:25 am out of CVG, on their way to Washington D.C. When they arrived at the airport, they were greeted by various groups, people in the military, and even a gal who was dressed up like she was from the 40s who gave Jerry a kiss on the cheek. He knew right then it was going to be a great day! Nineteen hours later, Jerry arrived at his home around 11:00 pm after a long, well-deserved, but fulfilling day!
As their plane taxied in, a crew from the local fire department pointed their cannons of water and shot the water over their plane. All sorts of signs welcomed the Veterans. Each Veteran (including about 35 of them who were in wheelchairs) wore a badge with a designated color for them to get on their respective Greyhound buses. They were driven to all the military memorials. Jerry’s uncle had fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, and he had visited the Marine Corps Iwo Jima memorial in middle school, so he really loved that memorial. They visited the Army memorial, Air Force memorial, Navy memorial, Korean War memorial, and the WW II Memorial Park (where every state is represented). Quite a few of the Veterans on the Honor Flight had served in the Vietnam War, so visiting that memorial was particularly moving for Jerry.
Respect and Gratitude
Everywhere the entourage traveled, they were treated with great respect. They witnessed the incredible precision of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Arlington, Virginia, where they were seated in rows right up front. Several of the Veterans placed a wreath at the tomb, and the guards gave the Veterans a special tribute. Jerry recalled that a number of children who were on vacation trips with their families stopped to salute Jerry and thanked him for his service! Then, when a reporter from Local 12 News asked for a Veteran to talk on TV, Jerry said,
“I’ll do it. We are Veterans. We believe in our country!”
Sherri remarked, “Throughout the day, numerous times Jerry said to me, ‘This is just amazing!’ and ‘I can’t believe all of this is for me!’ He was so grateful and felt so blessed to experience this once-in-a-lifetime event. I was equally thankful to spend the day with Jerry. . . . When we returned to Cincinnati and it was time for mail call, I gave him all the notes and letters I had been collecting for six weeks on his behalf. The day after our trip, he called me to tell me that he had all these notes from residents of the Lodge where he and his wife Gloria live, the mayor of Loveland, friends, countryside YMCA members, members of Lebanon Elks #422, ROTC cadets from the University of Cincinnati, and some children from a local church. I could hear the joy in his voice as he told me about his collection of thank-you notes.”
Jerry says that it felt like a half mile of people greeted them when they returned to CVG that evening. “Welcome home!” was a greeting not every Veteran received when they returned from active service.
Faith and Freedom
When I asked Sherri what impressed her most about Jerry, she replied, “Jerry is in amazing physical shape, as we walked almost 10k steps on concrete, stone, and blacktop throughout the course of the day. . . . He is a great conversationalist, and he never meets a stranger. He is so knowledgeable and is a leader. We connected with each other on that Honor Flight, and I know we will always have a special bond. In short, Jerry Nelson is amazing!”
Yesterday we celebrated the birth of our great nation. Jerry knows something about what it means to be free, and what it means to be free in Jesus Christ. He concludes with these thoughts,
“July 4th is the most important day of our nation. Many people sacrificed their lives so that we could live in a free nation. Not everyone today understands what it took for us to be free! God brought me back to him so that I could talk about him to other people. Being a Christian means that you are free, and you need to share your faith and your freedom with others!”
“If The Son therefore will set you free, you will truly be the children of liberty” (John 8:36, Aramaic Bible in Plain English).