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PRESENTED BY AND SM Featuring Marion “Dakota” Callen Arville Crawford Leonard Dahl Thomas English Wayne Gustafson Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Steve Ozburn Jonathan Perkins Chad Randall Haylie Randall Brent Thompson Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Sponsored by 2 AUGUST 2021 | STORIES OF HONOR SALUTING YOUR SERVICE AND SACRIFICE AARP salutes those who have served and still serve. We support our veterans and their families with information on career support, caregiving resources, community connections and more. To learn more, visit /AARPMontana aarp.org/mtvets. @AARPMontana STORIES OF HONOR | AUGUst 2021 3 Sgt. Marion “Dakota” Callen poses for a portrait in Miles City on Thursday, June 24, 2021. Sgt. Callen died July 26, about a month after he was interviewed for this feature. MIKE CLARK Billings Gazette Callen recalls his campaign to end WW2, and keep Gen. Patton safe By GRIFFEN SMITH hen Marion “Dakota” Cal- ing one of the fiercest men in U.S. military final push to defeat Nazi Germany in World [email protected] len first got the call to re- history: Gen. George S. Patton. War Two. port to his headquarters “I always remembered how short of a His service took him through iconic Editor’s note: Marion “Dakota” Callen while stationed in Europe fuse Patton had,” Callen said. “He would conflicts like the Battle of the Bulge and also was interviewed and photographed for this in 1944, he thought he yell at me for just having my boot outside of kept him in Europe during the U.S. occupa- series in late June of this year. He died July 26 was in trouble, as many the jeep when we were driving.” tion after the war. at age 96 at the VA Community Living Center W20-year-old young men do. But when he Callen has plenty of stories of life and in Miles City. arrived, he discovered he would be guard- death from the European front during the Please see CALLEN, Page 16 4 AUGUST 2021 | STORIES OF HONOR Arville Crawford sits in his home Friday, Aug. 6, 2021 in Billings. RYAN BERRY Billings Gazette Arville Crawford: Two-time survivor of the USS Abner Read By SULLIVAN HUEBNER to assist in the ongoing campaign against the waters and remain a safe distance from They could not have known that during [email protected] the Japanese invasion and occupation of the mines, and he retired to his cabin for the the next few hours, dozens of their com- Kiska. On this particular night, the ship night. rades would perish. At 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 18, was on an anti-submarine patrol, cruis- The crew on watch could see the moon At 1:50 a.m., while turning back towards 1943, the USS Abner Read ing a three and a half mile span. On one end through partial clouds and mist, and carried the beach at the far end of the patrol line, the was on patrol. was Kiska’s beach; on the other, a suspected on. Sailor Arville Crawford slipped from his Abner Read struck a drifting mine. The rear The 3,000-ton destroy- Japanese minefield. bunk and went to the head. Others huddled er had been dispatched to The commander at the time was satisfied around the lantern used to light cigarettes Alaska’s Aleutian Islands with the vessel’s ability to safely navigate during the midnight watch. Please see CRAWFORD, Page 17 W STORIES OF HONOR | AUGUst 2021 5 Leonard Dahl, age 97, holds a photograph of himself at age 21 in the U.S. Army. LARRY MAYER, Billings Gazette During the horrors of war, Leonard Dahl recalls a fleeting act of kindness By SUE OLP Dahl, 96, lives with his wife, Margue- terey Bay area. joined the fighting in New Guinea in 1944 For The Gazette rite, in Billings. When the Japanese bombed “While I was there, they shipped every- and then the Philippines in 1945. He was Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Dahl was a se- body out except those of us who hadn’t got- awaiting orders to ship out for an impend- eonard Dahl saw the worst of war as nior at Sidney High School in northeastern ten their GI glasses,” Dahl said. “So I took a ing invasion of Japan when the release of a member of the 43rd Infantry Divi- Montana. bunch of training there.” two atomic bombs ended the war. sion during World War II. After graduating that spring, the then- First sent overseas to New Caledonia in In September, Dahl sailed for Japan, But he also experienced a mo- 19-year-old Dahl joined the Army and was 1943, he arrived the day before Christmas, ment of kindness that has stuck sent to Camp Beale Air Force Base in Cali- then waited two months before being as- with him for more than 75 years. fornia, and then on to Ford Ord in the Mon- signed to the 43rd Infantry Division. Dahl Please see DAHL, Page 18 L6 AUGUST 2021 | STORIES OF HONOR Thomas English worked to improve justice in Afghanistan By SUE OLP For The Billings Gazette Tom English is a Bronze Star recipient. As a colonel in the hough Afghanistan’s fu- Army’s JAG Corp., he helped ture remains uncertain, Afghans establish a criminal especially after the cha- justice system of their own. otic withdrawal, Col. LARRY MAYER, Billings Gazette Thomas English did all he could during his 14 Tmonths there to bring justice to the country that’s been in upheaval for centuries. From 2010 to 2011, English, 65, of Billings, was tasked with a two- fold mission: to oversee the detainee review board, and help the Afghan government create a criminal jus- tice system based on that country’s laws so they could assume responsi- bility of detainees. English, who retired in 2014, en- listed in the U.S. Army in 1974 at age 17, continuing a family tradition. English’s grandfather died in World War I and his father was a 28-year Army vet. One son was an infantry- man in Iraq and another recently joined the U.S. Air Force. “The biggest aspect of it is the camaraderie and the pride of having served my country,” he said. English’s first assignment in the Army was as an MP for three years of active duty and three more years in the Army Reserve. “When I got off active duty, I was a state trooper in New Mexico, a ho- micide detective, also working on my bachelor’s degree,” he said. He remained in the reserves un- til 1981, when it got to be too much, juggling school and his military duties. English earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and gov- ernment from the University of New Mexico in 1985, then completed a law degree from UNM in 1988. He was recruited back into the Army in Please see ENGLISH, Page 18 AUGUST 2021 7 WWII vet Wayne Gustafson receives long overdue honors By SUE OLP they were invaded on the home- For The Gazette land, we knew how hard it would be.” ittle did Wayne Gustafson Instead, the U.S. dropped its know when he enlisted in first atomic bomb on Hiroshima the U.S. Navy in spring on Aug. 6 and a second on Naga- 1945 how soon World War saki three days later. The war of- II would an end and what ficially ended on Sept. 2. part he would play in re- Gustafson’s ship was assigned Lturning Japanese POWs to their to transport troops and arma- homeland. ment to occupied Japan, as well Gustafson, 94, was born in as supplies to Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Chinook but spent most of his Guam, Saipan, the Philippines, young life in Hardin, graduating Wake Island and Japan. But its from high school in 1945. In April main duty was to repatriate Japa- of that year, at age 17, he traveled nese soldiers, a trip the ship made to Helena to enlist. Not long after “two or three times.” he graduated and turned 18, Gus- Though there were 60 crew tafson was called to active duty. members onboard and nearly 700 Following boot camp in San Japanese POWs, the prisoners Wayne Gustafson, 94, was born in Chinook but Diego, he was assigned to the never posed a threat, he said. They spent most of his young 300-foot USS LST 915, an am- were relieved to be going home. life in Hardin, graduating phibious ship typically used to Gustafson remembers clearly from high school in 1945. deliver Marines and equipment to when the ship sailed into the har- islands for battles. bor at Sendai, 200 miles north of Courtesy photos Gustafson, a quartermaster, Tokyo. The cheers of the POWs as was navigator aboard the ves- they sailed into port – “It was the sel. He spent most of time in the biggest cheer I’ve ever heard, in- wheelhouse guiding the ship’s cluding football games.” path. Not all of the threats came Gustafson also recalls looking from serving during a war. up into the hills surrounding the “I survived several life-threat- port city, where he saw artillery ening typhoons aboard ship,” pointed toward the ship. he said. “During the height of “It occurred to me how good it one storm the waves were 100 was we were there in peacetime, feet high, tossing us around like not trying to invade the coun- a piece of lumber. Then we lost try,” he said. “It would have been power and the engines were deadly.” swamped with water in the mid- He also remembers returning dle of the night.” to the United States in May 1946, America was 4-1/2 years into sailing from Hawaii to Northern its war with Japan by the time California and seeing an iconic Gustafson joined the Navy.