Four vets receive BP Quilts of Valor

Blooming Prairie added four veterans to the list of more than 350 others who have received a Quilt of Valor.

Marilyn Meshke told the Memorial Day crowd at the Servicemen’s Club that local organizer Chris Butler has explained her commitment to the program as “giving her a wonderful feeling, because veterans have told her that nobody ever said ‘thank you.’

“So today we say thank you to our veterans for their sacrifice, their valor and their military service,” Meshke said.

Her message struck a chord with at least two of the vets who were honored.

Allen Wesly enlisted in the Army in June 1971, and spent most of his two years of service in Germany.

“You can’t always tell who a veteran is,” he said after receiving his quilt. “The Vietnam War was not a popular war, and when we came home, the first thing we wanted to do was get that uniform off, so we couldn’t be identified anymore.

“For many, many years, I didn’t even tell anybody I was a vet … but when (the U.S.) got into Iraq, we finally realized that veterans were only doing what they were told to do,” Wesly said. “Politics was not important to them; they were there to defend their country.”

Last year, Wesly’s daughter, who served in Iraq, received a quilt.

“Thank you,” he said, “and you don’t know how much it really means to finally (have) a show of ‘thank you.’”

The symbol of thanks was a surprise for Richard Epp, of Owatonna, whose quilt was pieced by his sister-in-law, Linda Christianson.

When he enlisted in the fall of 1967, Epp realized “it’s not a very good idea for a guy who’s 6-foot-7 to be wading through rice paddies with a gun over his head, so I looked around, and found something called the Seabees.”

Formally, they are members of the U.S. Naval Construction Battalions, and Epp had experience in construction.

That winter, he joined his battalion in Vietnam – three days into the Tet Offensive, a deadly series of surprise attacks launched by the North Vietnamese Army during a time of traditional truce.

Epp returned to the U.S. for four months, then had an engineering project in Guam for another four months.

He was deployed back to Vietnam, to the Da Nang airport area, where his battalion rebuilt structures that had been rocketed, including a morgue, he said.

Epp paused to compose himself.

“After two years, two deployments to Vietnam, here I am today,” he said. “Thank you so much for honoring all of us vets … it’s good to be appreciated.”

Michael Bibus, a native of Blooming Prairie, spent two years in the Army, his granddaughter told the crowd.

He was sent to the Dominican Republic in early 1966, said Elsie Christianson, “to stop a Communist uprising.”

Bibus supported the 82^nd Airborne as a truck driver,” she continued. “He slept in a tent with fellow soldiers and a bunch of rats.”

Her grandfather shook then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s hand during a visit, “and told him he was from Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, and Hubert Humphrey smiled.”

After the intervention in the Dominican Republic ended, “the Army offered him a job driving for the U.S. Embassy, but Gramps said, ‘no, thanks, I have to get back to Blooming Prairie.’”

Bibus was discharged in December 1967, and went on to have a successful photography career in Austin.

Chuck Nicholson, also a native of Blooming Prairie, joined the National Guard in 1988. He took part in Operation Desert Storm from December 1990 to April 1991. He was discharged in 1993.

“There’s so many people out here I’ve looked up to,” said Nicholson, who was a member of the local VFW for about 20 years before moving to Rochester. “All the guys out here were my role models growing up.

“It’s an honor to receive this,” he said of the quilt, “so thank you.”

The quilts were sewn and assembled by Butler, Christianson, Shirley Nelson, Diane Anderson and Bev Wacek. Becky Miner donates the quilt labels that are added.

The project is funded by donations that pay for fabric, batting and other expenses. Each quilt requires a minimum of 20 hours by the time it is finished.