Honoring a local businessman, other heroes

This past week Grannie Annie and your old retired Air Force veteran columnist joined in with a group of local American Legion members in honoring a special businessman. He is Adam Siegfried owner and manager of the Coppermill Steakhouse, an elite restaurant in our fair city. I was tickled at the process. The group of fifteen or so of us walked into the café about five thirty when it wasn’t yet jam packed with customers. The groups and couples dining though were a bit surprised to hear our local Veterans Service Officer, Mike Simmons, cry out in a drill sergeant voice: “Listen up. We from the American Legion are here to present a special thank you to your manager Adam!” All seemed a bit surprised but looked up with happy faces.

The whole setup was a surprise to Adam as he had no clue that it was about to take place. Just a normal evening of work and here a whole group come barging in unannounced and yelling out to the customers already seated!

The purpose of the visit was to give a hearty thank you for the ongoing way that Adam and his crew treat the military veterans in this community. Free meals on Veterans Day each fall and many other special favors unannounced throughout each year. In military tradition a fancy certificate was presented to our generous manager and then an American flag, folded to display in the traditional glass fronted triangular display box that was given to him. This one was crafted by veterans living in the Nebraska Veteran’s Home in Grand Island. Engraved brass plaquettes recorded the details.

Adam seemed pleased and prescribed free drinks from his bar for we vets present. Some of us, Grannie and me included, stayed to dine and others gathered to socialize and visit (truth only!) as former military guys do best. Thank you, Manager Siegfried. Carry on!

Yes, yesterday was Memorial Day and our American Legion put on a nice ceremony in splendid weather at Memorial Park Cemetery. It was well attended and featured McCook native son Colton Craig as speaker. That is U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant Colton Craig in brand new resplendent uniform. You see Lt. Craig graduated from McCook High School, Class of 2020, then attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His graduation speaker at West Point, was President Joe Biden and that took place Saturday the 25th, just two days before he spoke to us! Very well done.

Grannie Annie has a special place in her heart for Colton Craig. While he was here in high school, he was in need of community service in order to be looked favorably in securing an appointment to West Point. He came often to help prepare and pack boxes that she and her crew were sending to Chaplains deployed overseas. Her very successful Adopt-a-Chaplain project. Grannie being a former Air Force wife she was always trying to get Colton to also apply to the Air Force Academy but no he had his heart set on West Point. Dreams fulfilled for a special young man.

Now in keeping in the spirit of Memorial Day I have some remembrance of another McCook High School graduate, this one of the Class of 1948, by the name of Bob Roth. Bob was a classmate of my older sister Margaret’s husband Dale Nielsen. She noted that he was the first in that class to be deceased, in this case KIA in Korea.

Bob Roth’s dad was a barber who maintained a shop in the basement of the Keystone Hotel. Memory tells me that Bob was an only son. Memory also tells that when his number came up in the military draft he considered it to be a sentence of death. Still he went and was trained as a rifleman even though he somehow knew that if he would be sent to the hot war that was raging in Korea, at that time, he would never return alive.

I know nothing of the circumstances of Bob Roth’s death on the battlefield only that his father, the barber, was forever saddened to become a Gold Star parent.

So yes, on Memorial Day 2024 here in McCook, Nebraska we also honored the memory of a nearly forgotten son that was killed in action protecting this wonderful country that we live in today. He was just one of the millions of men and women that have died in the many wars to keep our country safe so that we can enjoy the life you and I live today. May we ever be grateful.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail