- OK, people. Hello. OK. Can you hear me? I can hear you. I hope you can hear me. And if we quiet down,
- I think you can. I hope you can. And I apologize to those of you in the back who do not have chairs.
- This is how many chairs they have here. And we're great.
- for this big crowd. Sorry, we don't have seats for everyone. There are three seats still up front. So
- please figure out, draw straws, and figure out who could come up to get them. OK? Well, let's get started.
- My name's Dave Nord, and I'm the Monroe County historian, which is a volunteer appointment in every
- county, a historian by the Indiana Historical Society in the Indiana
- History Bureau. And I welcome you all here today. I'm the Monroe County guy. But in a few minutes, I'll
- introduce somebody from the Indiana Historical Bureau. We're here today to honor and to historicize
- our community's most highly decorated soldier, Gary Kisters. And I use the pompous academic term historicize,
- because I'm a pompous academic.
- By that, all I mean is to place into history, local history, state history, national history. Gary Kister's
- has been honored several times in Bloomington and Monroe County, but the marker that we're dedicating
- today outside is a historical marker. It's a state historical marker authorized and approved by the
- Indiana Historical Bureau.
- And I think that's important, and that's why we're talking about history today, and I'll get onto that
- in a few minutes. But first, I would like to introduce Casey Pfeiffer, who is representing, she's the
- manager of the Historical Marker Program for the Indiana Historical Bureau. And she'll say a few words
- about the program, and then we'll turn back to the program itself. So Casey, you want to come up here?
- Thank you guys so much. Thank you, Dave. My name is Casey Pfeiffer. I'm the Historical Marker Program
- Director at the Indiana Historical Bureau, and I'm just so thrilled to be able to be here today as we
- get ready to dedicate this new marker honoring Gary Kisters. The Historical Bureau's division of the
- Indiana State Library, and our mission is to share the rich history of our state. Over the years, 100
- plus years,
- We have endeavored to do that through numerous programs and projects, but the most notable and visible
- of those has been the State Historical Marker Program. It is a collaborative program. It's public-driven.
- We cannot do what we do without the interest of people across the state who are committed to preserving
- our history. And with that in mind, I just want to very briefly thank former county historian,
- Glenda Murray, who initiated this project and spearheaded the application. There's a lot of work that
- goes into these projects. It's limited text, but there's a lot to make sure that that text is accurate
- and provides
- you know.
- wonderful representation of the topic. I, of course, also want to thank Dave, current county historian.
- He's been my main point of contact in this for the last few months. And he's really taken over the mantle
- and working really hard to preserve the history here. So we're very appreciative. And then, of course,
- to the Monroe County Airport and to the Monroe County History Center for all of their work, sponsoring,
- funding, helping with installation, everything, like I said, that goes into these projects. And,
- of course, finally, to the Kisters family. Thank you so much for being here and for the work
- that you've done to preserve his memory. Markers are snapshots. They're tangible reminders of our past.
- Over the course of just a few sentences, they help to inform and educate us about the people, places,
- events, and organizations that have helped to shape the history of our state and nation. And of course,
- Lieutenant Kisters is worthy of this recognition. This is today
- One of over 800 markers that have been installed since the marker program began in 1946. It's our eighth
- marker to be dedicated this year. And of those eight, it's our third that actually looks at military
- history in our state. So we dedicated a marker back in June for Major George Slaughter, a Revolutionary
- War soldier down in Clark County. We dedicated one back in May for Lieutenant Colonel William Swain,
- who was a Civil War veteran, and then here today to look at someone who served in World War II. And
- it's really our hope that with this marker, it is a lasting reminder
- reminder of Lieutenant Gary Kister's contributions to our state, to our country, and his deep ties to
- the community and all the work he did post-war. So thank you all so much for allowing me to be here
- and be part of this wonderful program. Thank you, Casey. And she's done most of the thank yous, so we
- won't turn this into a thank you fast. This isn't a TV awards show.
- But I was going to mention Glenda Murray, who brought this project, did most of the work on the project,
- and particularly the airport staff and management board, who supported not just this gathering today,
- but the marker itself with money and with work. And so I really appreciate that. And one group that
- deserves some thanks are the Daughters of the American Revolution, local chapter, who are providing us with
- Snacks to Dan, snacks. That counts, snacks count. But let's get on with the history, with the historicization
- here. And I'll start myself and then turn it over to my colleagues here up at the front table. When
- Gary Kistors returned to the United States after his service,
- in Africa and Sicily in 1944, early 1944. He was presented with the Distinguished Service Cross and
- with the Congressional Medal of Honor in Washington D.C. by Army Chief of Staff George Marshall and
- President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt. And this was big news all over the country. I've
- been looking at news stories from February 1944.
- And the paper, all the papers had this story from east to west coast. The reason why they did is because
- Kistors was the first American serviceman to be honored with both of those high awards. And I've printed
- for you several of the news stories that are a packet in the back. One is from the New York Times that
- has the presentation story from Washington, and the other
- There are two others about Bloomington and Kister's coming to Bloomington after he left Washington.
- And be sure to pick those up. I decided to print those for you. I think I have enough for all of you.
- And if I don't, tell me about it and I'll get one to you. But there's one new story that I particularly
- like that I didn't copy for you. And it was in Women's Wear Daily. Women's Wear Daily was then and still is now
- the leading trade publication of the fashion and apparel industry in New York City. And their story,
- I didn't copy it because it's essentially the same wire service story that you see in other clippings.
- But there was a twist that I really liked, and the twist is this, the headline. The headline was,
- Ex-Fur Man, First Soldier to Win Too High Decorations. Fur Man.
- Yes, Gary Kissers was a fur man. He was a furrier. He had a fur store before the war, and he had a fur
- store after the war, selling fur coats, stoles, scarves, etc. He was not a professional soldier. He
- was a citizen soldier. For women's wear daily, that was important. He was one of them. He was in retail
- trade. He was their guy.
- So Women's Wear Daily highlighted his retail trade position as much as his military service. The citizen
- soldier has been an ideal type throughout American history. The citizen soldier is an ordinary American
- who answers the call of the country.
- when needed, serves faithfully, and then goes home, goes back to family and community, back to ordinary
- life. This ideal, this tradition, dates back to the American Revolution and even before. In 1776,
- in fact, one of the American's grievances, which was listed in the Declaration of Independence, was
- the presence of professional British soldiers in the colonies.
- The Americans hated so-called standing armies. They preferred local militias of citizen soldiers. Often,
- this was a big mistake during that war. In the early years of the Revolution, the war was nearly lost
- several times because of the ineptitude of the American amateurs, the citizen soldiers. But in the end,
- they won. And even General Washington,
- who was about as close as the Americans could get to military professionalism, was a species of citizen
- soldier. Throughout the war, Washington complained and whined incessantly to the Congress about the
- need that the Army had for more professional personnel, for organization, for support. Sometimes he
- got it, sometimes not. But when the war finally ended, after eight long,
- years, Washington resigned his commission and went home. He thus became an American popular history
- and lore, the personification of the citizen soldier. And so it was with Jerry, Gary Kisters. He served
- faithfully, heroically, and then he went home. He operated a fur shop in Bloomington. And by doing that,
- He made his military heroism all the more inspiring. It suggested that anyone can be a hero. Kister's
- citations, I thought I would read to you and then I decided the better thing to do would be to print
- them in full for you to read. So there's copies of the citations for the two awards back on the table.
- The program, of course, is back there along with the clippings. The last sentence, and the marker itself
- describes the awards. The last sentence of the Distinguished Service Cross citation, I think, sums up
- both of them pretty well. The extraordinary heroism, initiative, and devotion to duty
- with complete disregard for his own welfare displayed by Staff Sergeant Kisters reflect great credit
- upon himself and the military service and are deserving of the highest praise. Now, let's put Gary Kisters
- into historical context. What I'll do is introduce three speakers today. They'll be brief.
- I'll introduce all three of them right now and then they'll take turns. Our first speaker will be Nick
- Cullither talking about the historical context of Kisters in World War II. That is the war in North
- Africa and Sicily and Italy. Nick is a professor of 20th century diplomatic history and international
- affairs at IU.
- Our next speaker will be John Summerlot, who will talk about the role of military veterans in the life
- of Bloomington and Monroe County, both in the past and in the present. And John is a local historian
- who specializes in IU history, as well as Monroe County Military and Veterans Affairs. And our third
- speaker will be Justin Robertson at this end.
- give us some personal reflections on Gary Kister's life in post-war Bloomington. Justin is operations
- manager at the Monroe County History Center, and lucky for us today, he's Gary Kister's nephew. We also
- have with us today several people from the Kister's family, children and grandchildren, and Justin will
- introduce them as well.
- when he speaks. So let me turn it over, the mic over now to Nick, and he'll start us off. Nick,
- thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Dave. The first thing you have to understand about why Gary Kisters was
- in North Africa and Spain is that it wasn't an American idea.
- The American command structure from the Secretary of War on down to every general and planner on the
- general staff knew that the best way to get to the heart of Germany quickly, the best way to bring the
- war to a quick end, and the best way to take the pressure off the Soviet Union, which was always in
- danger of pulling out of the war, was to go through France and Operation Overlord,
- was planned very early on, and this was the American idea, was we move across the channel, we get into
- France quickly, and it was thought to be good tank country on the inside of that Atlantic wall, and
- you do battle with the Germans right there. But the invasions of North Africa and Italy, operations
- Torch and Husky,
- solved a strategic problem for Britain. The Battle of Dunkirk had left Britain's forces divided. Half
- the army was located in Cairo, cut off from the rest of Europe by Rommel's Africa Corps, and the other
- half in the British Isles itself. So in order to concentrate those forces, they needed to somehow break
- through that and bring them together.
- Montgomery's victory at the Battle of El Alamein, which kind of turned the tide in North Africa, didn't
- really solve that problem. They were still marooned over on that side. German planes flying from bases
- on both sides of the Mediterranean controlled that sea. And so ships couldn't move freely through, through
- there. And it was hazardous for the Royal Navy to even resupply their troops in Africa. Churchill came
- to America.
- in two conferences known as the Second and Third Atlantic Conferences to make the case for a war on
- what he called the soft underbelly of the axis to try to start the war by coming in through North Africa
- and Italy. An idea that knocking Italy out of the war would be a psychological victory that would turn
- the tide of the war.
- The Americans were unanimously against it. The thing they were most afraid of was that Churchill would
- somehow get FDR alone by himself. He could be tremendously persuasive. He was a hard man to argue with.
- His wife, Clemmie, knew better than to argue with Winston. She said, Winston is a professional arguer.
- I don't do it. I just go to my bedroom and I write him a letter.
- which may explain why, despite the fact that they live together their entire lives, they have over 800
- letters. One another. But in the end, Churchill did get Roosevelt by himself. And in the end, he prevailed.
- His best argument was that American troops had no experience in modern combat.
- And this notion of the citizen soldier was part of that idea. There was a conviction on the part of
- our European allies that Americans weren't good fighters. They were too wrapped up in our consumerism,
- maybe our furs, to be good fighters. And Churchill argued that the Americans needed some time and maybe
- a less intense war
- in order to kind of build up their skills and develop the techniques. And particularly, the techniques
- of combined arms tactics involving a combination of air, sea, and land power, artillery, armor, and
- infantry all operating in close coordination. It was a new technique of war, largely new to World War
- II. And on this last point, he was right.
- in the places where Gary Kisters fought in Tunis and in Sicily. If Kisters saw a plane, it was a German
- plane, usually a Stuka. If he saw a tank, it would be a German tank. And so, is that my phone?
- The Americans needed time to develop their techniques on this. And there was, you know, Kisters knew
- in those settings that, you know, when the enemy was there, when they had the artillery, when they had
- the tanks, when they had the planes, there was nobody coming to the rescue. They had to handle this
- situation on their own. And hand grenades, rifles,
- were pretty much all they had. Churchill was wrong, too. The underbelly of the Axis wasn't so soft.
- Ernie Pyle was there. He said, the land and the weather were both against us. The country was shockingly
- beautiful and just as shockingly hard to capture from the enemy. Historians would come to see Operations
- Torch and Husky as where an inexperienced US Army
- learned how to fight at a great cost. Kisters was in the 91st Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron. And despite
- that name, the 91st was at the time the only reconnaissance squadron in the entire European theater.
- The recon platoons traveled light. They traveled in jeeps and scout cars without armor.
- They carried 1928 Model Thompson submachine guns, one heavy machine gun per platoon. They were meant
- to probe ahead of the main units and take out machine gun nests and artillery positions. That was their
- job. The Marines, at this point in the war, had a slogan that described what they did. They said their
- job was to make the world safe for the Army.
- Kister's platoon could easily say the same thing. This was their job, was to go out and make the world
- safe for the advancing troops. And I, for one, am very thankful to him for that, because my father was
- part of the same army. He went into North Africa and through Sicily and into Italy. And he was several
- weeks behind Kister's, however. My father, for the duration of the war, never saw a single live German.
- He was in the Air Corps.
- in the Eighth Army Air Corps. And before I had cataracts, I did have eyeglasses, too, and my father
- did his entire life. So he never flew a plane, either. His job was to guard them. So like Gary Kisters,
- he was a staff sergeant, and he was standing there with a carbine trying to keep the Italians away from
- the planes. In North Africa, Kisters and his
- men met a formidable enemy in the Africa Corps led by General Erwin Rommel. Rommel found the seam between
- the American and the British lines and drove through it at a place called the Kasserine Pass, inflicting
- the most serious defeat on the Allies in the entire war. It could well have been worse.
- But before Rommel could capture the Allied supply depot and push on toward the coast, which was his
- plan, the Italian commander in that theater ordered him to attack in a different direction and thereby
- saved the Allied advance. The recon troops, as usually happens on the ground, see very little of that
- strategy. They don't really know what's happening in the larger sense of the war.
- They only heard about those setbacks a few days and weeks later when they learned that their commanding
- general, General Friedendahl, had been replaced by a new general named Patton. After the Kasserine,
- the Allies steadily closed the ring around the Axis troops in Tunis. The 91st recon was given the toughest
- job, clearing a German position atop a 1,500-foot mountain known as the Jebel Ichkud.
- about 25 miles south of the Zerte. Pockmarked with caves, caves filled with battle-hardened troops of
- the Hermann Göring Division. The citation doesn't say where the action in which Kisters won
- the Distinguished Service Cross took place, but it was likely there. After that line gave way, the Germans
- began evacuating the remnants of the Afrika Korps from Tunis.
- Every year it seems there's a new movie about World War II. This year's movie, my wife and I, my wife's
- in the back right there. So the other, when did we watch it? Yeah, the movie's called Pressure. Have
- you seen this movie? It's actually a pretty good movie. It's worth watching, but I'm going to challenge
- it right now.
- It's about, quote, the 72 hours before D-Day, and with the fate of the free world hanging in the balance,
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Group Captain James Stagg face an impossible choice, launch the largest
- and most dangerous seaborne invasion in history or risk losing the war altogether. It's partly right.
- It wasn't, however, the largest seaborne operation in world history.
- not in fact even the largest seaborne operation commanded by Dwight Eisenhower. That would be the operation
- in Sicily, the landing in Sicily. The drama of the movie comes from a decision about the weather. A
- storm threatens to wreck the D-Day plans. But a lesson Eisenhower learned from Sicily was that if there
- is bad weather, the Germans have to fight in it too.
- Because in Sicily, they came ashore in a gale in the midst of a thunderstorm. And yes, people did die.
- Boats were capsized. But ultimately, Eisenhower concluded, it probably saved lives. The Germans, seeing
- the storm coming in, realized the Americans probably weren't going to invade today. And so they pulled
- back into the interior of the island.
- the Americans and the British came ashore almost unopposed and faced a counterattack the next day, but
- just from the Italians, which they were able to repel. Like southern France, Sicily, and this, so Gary
- Kisters was part of that invasion force, he came ashore with them, and then he drove ahead of the troops,
- you have to kind of picture this, into the highlands of,
- of central Sicily. And that area is dotted by these communities called perched villages, where there's
- a village that's atop a mountain. And these date from the Middle Ages. In fact, if you look at Wikipedia
- for the Battle of Guyana, you don't see the battle that Gary Kistors fought in. You see a battle that's
- from the 11th century. So it was a place where people had fought before.
- These places are absolutely beautiful unless you have to capture one. There's usually a castle or a
- monastery at the very summit of it, and this would be where the Germans would set up their artillery
- positions. And so the recon troops had to kind of glide in there very quickly on their fast-moving jeeps
- and somehow knock those out. That was the job that they were given. The Battle for Sicily is known for these
- Hilltown battles, Troina, Vizzini, Corleone, Ciarami. They were fortified by Panzer Grenadiers and General
- Kesselring's strategy was to inflict as many casualties as possible and to delay the Allied advance
- to try to save, to create time for the Germans to turn the tide on the eastern front, which is where
- the war was really being fought.
- at that time. And so that's what Guyana was. That was the battle that Gary Kistors distinguished himself
- in. The lesson Patton would draw from Sicily was to bypass these strong points. When he got into France,
- what he did was he just drove around them and let the Air Force come in, my dad's group come in and
- handle it afterwards. They would leave a few people behind to isolate that town.
- and just pulverize it with air power. So I like to think that that was Gary Kister's real triumph, that
- Gallardo survived. It is today a hugely beautiful tourist attraction. Google it. It looks absolutely
- stunning. Every February there's a carnival with a mass parade. Every December they have a
- Mustard Festival there. All that is possible because that town was not destroyed by the Air Force. Because
- Kisters took out that German anti-tank gun, Guyana would not be like San Pietro. It would not be like
- Monte Cassino. It would not be demolished. It would survive, and it was because of Gary Kisters. And
- I think that is his real triumph, and that's why
- But I didn't know what all Nick was going to say and include in his. And it's not really in my notes,
- but I have to mention it as we go forward. So one of my favorite games to play is I go to museums, and
- I find a way to tie something at the museum back to either IU or Bloomington or something like that.
- My family hates this game, just for the record. But it's a fun game to play. And so he mentioned the
- Thompson submachine gun. And a lot of folks don't know that
- Brigadier General James Taliaferro Thompson, who invented the Thompson submachine gun, did his freshman
- year here at IU. His dad was a faculty member here at IU, and he eventually got accepted to West Point
- and went to that school and graduated. I'm sure they're a fine institution and all, but during his time,
- you know, he maybe thought about that while he was a freshman here. We'll see.
- So my role is to talk about the role of veterans, those citizen soldiers in the history of our community.
- What is that role? What do they do here? And so obviously I'll start at the very beginning when Bloomington
- was a frontier town. And sometimes it's kind of hard to think about what Monroe County and the frontier
- would look like. But keeping in mind that Indiana was settled from south to north at the point that
- Bloomington was platted and people began moving to the community, Unionville was the frontier.
- So that whole corner of the county didn't even belong to us yet. That was still territory that belonged
- to Native American tribes. And as we moved north, that became that area. So who moves to the frontier?
- Well, there's a lot of veterans that are used to what we in the military world call austere conditions,
- right? They're used to living in tents. They're used to building shelters. They're used to foraging
- and finding things. So the Duns,
- The Maxwells, the Alexanders, many of the founding names that you know from our community were those
- folks that were moving to this area. They were veterans of the revolution. They were veterans of the
- War of 1812. They were citizen soldiers. They had served in these militias. The Indiana Rangers, which
- were the early military force and law enforcement agency here in the state of Indiana that later Texas
- copied for a more famous and splashy version. They were parts of that organization.
- in those early years. By the time the Mexican-American War comes in the 1840s,
- We raised two companies of citizen soldiers out of Monroe County, two companies to go to the Mexican-American
- War, headed by Captain John Sluice and Captain Daniel Lunderman. Again, these are prominent local names
- that would be well known. From that war, we also get our first student veterans that return.
- And in this case, I'm talking about George Buskirk, who returned after having served and became one
- of our first veterans to graduate from IU, and then went on to become a lawyer and a judge
- and a politician here in the local community. By the Civil War, our community is large enough that here
- in Monroe County, we are able to raise parts of five companies during the Civil War. Those service members
- were a wide range of folks, but my favorite one of note is David Campbell van Buskirk from the Gosport
- area, otherwise known as Big Dave. And why was he known as Big Dave? Because he was six foot 10.
- and over 300 pounds. He was specifically recruited for a unit of very tall individuals with the psychological
- idea that if they sent them into combat against the Confederates, they would be intimidated surely by
- their size. That did not entirely work out. Big Dave was captured, his unit was captured, and
- the Confederates charged admission in the prison camp for locals to come see him. So.
- He did eventually return to Bloomington and go on to be a farmer and a local businessman for the rest
- of his life.
- After the war, we saw an influx of additional settlers coming to our community, which included some
- of our first African-American veterans that had served with the colored troops during the war and were
- returning as a part of that. We also saw our first veterans organization, the Grand Army of the Republic,
- which was the Union Veterans Organization, that became a political force within the community. Many
- of our early veterans monuments were erected by them. They were very active in politics. You would not
- be voted sheriff if you
- did not have the Grand Army's approval here in the community. So they held a lot of sway and power.
- The Spanish-American War, the Mexican border expedition, we sent units there as well. By the Mexican
- border expedition, we had what is today known as the National Guard unit here in town, and we were able
- to send folks with that.
- So World War I, in most people's mind, is sort of an easier time to think about what our role was and
- what we did. And some of that's because our VFW and our American Legion chapters are both named after
- local men who were killed in World War I.
- And so understanding that World War I commitment and that piece of it people often get, but there's
- some stories that sometimes go untold through that. One of my favorites is a young woman named Letty
- Wadsworth, and Letty Wadsworth was originally from Odin, Indiana, but she moved up here to the big city
- of Bloomington as a teenager. And living here in Bloomington when the war first broke out, she decided
- she wanted to serve in that war as a nurse, and she got trained as a nurse, but there was one small problem.
- The Americans were not yet in the war. So she joined the British Army via Canada. And she went over
- and served with the British Army and then came back and said, OK, one tour is enough. I'm good. I'm
- going to go to school. She started taking classes at IU. And then the Americans joined the war. And
- she watched the men in the classes around her start leaving to go off to war. She decided that wasn't
- good enough. She needed to go again. So she joined the American Army this time and went over and served
- a second tour as a nurse in Europe during that war.
- When she came back to our community, at this point, the Spanish influenza, the 1917 influenza epidemic
- is sweeping through the country. And it's a misnomer to think of it as only having happened in that
- year, much like COVID and other pandemics. It had reoccurring years after that in 1919, 1920, 1921,
- that it came through the community. And each time it came through the community and a hospital had to
- be set up, she stopped her studies.
- And she helped set up and run that hospital here in our community. She went back to nursing. In 1922,
- she finally acquired enough credits to graduate from the university after all these interruptions. What
- did she do? She became a community nurse here in southern Indiana. And she spent the rest of her life
- serving as a community nurse in Monroe County, Owen County, Lawrence County, working with families,
- working with communities during epidemics, working with maternity death rates, all of these sort of
- challenges that they were trying to get through.
- So, World War II comes along. Now, I'm guessing most people in this room know someone, either in your
- family or in this community, maybe they've passed by now, who served in World War II. I see some heads
- nodding. We can probably name somebody that served in World War II that we know. Korea, Vietnam,
- the Cold War, we may know some folks that served in that war as well.
- How many of y'all know someone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan or someone, you don't catch it,
- someone that has served in the Cold War even, right? So there's a few hands that go up, but if you're
- thinking in your head, I know fewer of those people, there's a reason for that. So in World War II,
- 11 to 12% of the US population served in the war, in the military during that war.
- 11 to 12% of Bloomington at that point would have given about 18 to 20,000 people that lived in Bloomington
- during World War II. So imagine out of a population of 18 to 20,000 people, 12% of them leave to go
- serve in the war. And that's not including students that came in and then left to go serve in the war.
- We also get an influx of people that moved to Bloomington. Bloomington's a boom town during the
- Between 1940 and 1945, we increased 15% in size. By 1950, we had increased another 20%. So in a decade,
- Bloomington grew by 35% during that time. So by 1950, we're at 35%. By 1970, the population of Bloomington
- had doubled since 1940. And by 2000, it would double again.
- Now you ask yourself, why is it that you might not know who the veterans are that have served in Iraq
- or Afghanistan? About half a percent of Americans have served in the US military since 9-11.
- Half a percent. So when you look at half a percent of what is arguably now somewhere between 80 to 120,000
- people that live in Bloomington, depending on which census and whether you're looking at Bloomington
- or Monroe County or all of that, versus 12%
- when it was 20,000 people. That's a big difference. So, while in Gary Kister's time, folks would have
- known. He would have, everybody knew who the veterans were. The veterans were a tight community. People
- knew who they were. They were involved in these organizations. They were easy to identify. They very
- often didn't have to tell people they were veterans, because everybody just sort of knew that.
- Nowadays, with our current situation and what it is, there are many veterans who will identify as veterans.
- They maybe wear a flag t-shirt. They have something every day that they do. But there's many of them
- in that citizen soldier model that have gone on to do other things. And that is not a prominent piece
- of their identity. And they just blend into our community. And given their small numbers, that is very
- easy for them to do, particularly for women veterans who are often overlooked in those roles.
- So it's important as we understand and we think back to the legacy of our veterans and I'm a child of
- a veteran grandson of a veteran great grandson of a veteran. My family's been here since before the
- revolution we've caught every war that has come along. Right. And so,
- I understand that importance and that community tie in that piece of it. And at the same time, those
- sort of families are harder and harder to find. Those sort of families are fewer and far between as
- our military gets smaller, as we're not facing these large sizes of wars.
- So it's important if we want to recognize and honor our current veterans that we also remember who the
- veterans were that came before them. Because when they see communities that are honoring the veterans
- that came before them, they feel that relationship, they feel that connection to what it is that they're
- doing there in that moment. Thank you.
- Good afternoon. I'm Justin Robertson, operations manager at the Monroe County History Center. But possibly
- more topically for today, I am one of Gary Kister's nephews. And I'm very grateful to be here, and especially
- grateful to everyone who showed up today. And it's great to see some familiar faces out here, some of
- the kids that I was at Uncle Gary's daycare center with.
- So we are here today to honor Gary Kister's service to his country. But I'd like to talk for a few minutes
- about the man who came home from that service and what Gary Kister's was like as a person after the
- war, as I know him. When you're eight years old, you don't really know what makes someone a hero. You
- just know who your heroes are. And mine was my Uncle Gary.
- My sister and I attended the daycare center that Uncle Gary and Aunt Noly ran. So we didn't just see
- him at Thanksgiving and Christmas. He wasn't just some guy that showed up with a fruitcake every year.
- He was part of our everyday lives. And my mother worked there, too. So we spent a great deal of time
- with him. We also lived just a few blocks away from him, so he couldn't really get away from me. I was
- always coming into his yard while he was gardening and stuff. But the funny thing is is,
- I really didn't know that he was a war hero, at least not in the way that we are honoring him here today.
- I knew he had served during World War II. I'd seen pictures of him in uniform. He looked very good in
- uniform, like a movie star, which was frankly unfair to the rest of us men in the family. And I knew
- there were stories about the war that the family would tell when he wasn't around. But Uncle Gary never
- talked about the war to me or about being a hero.
- It was almost as though he kept that part of his life separate from the people who hadn't been there
- during those desperate times. So, the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, North Africa,
- Italy, and all that was simply not the Gary Kisters that I knew. He was just my favorite uncle.
- He was kind, gentle, generous, and fascinated by the natural world.
- He seemed to have a remarkable gift for understanding the language of animals and children. And he was
- a little eccentric in the best possible way. Uncle Gary was a collector who had his own cabinet
- of curiosities. Rocks, minerals, fossils, gemstones, old newspapers, antique tools, and household objects.
- I could go on, right? Anything that caught his attention or had a story to tell, he would collect.
- President Franklin Roosevelt had given Lieutenant Gary Kistors the Medal of Honor, and General George
- C. Marshall had given him the Distinguished Service Cross. But I really think his most prized possession
- was his coveted piece of fossilized dinosaur excrement that he had scored in a roadside shop somewhere
- in the Southwest while on one of his rock-hunting trips.
- And I personally had to agree with him on this. To me, eight years old, this was the most important
- material possession anyone could own. And that was what I requested to see whenever I visited him, not
- his medals. I was significantly more impressed by the dinosaur poop. And in addition to this miraculous
- fossil, Uncle Gary owned a fur shop.
- to an eight-year-old, this was an excellent career choice. He had apparently decided he was going to
- be a one-man natural history museum and not only a fur shop. There were furs everywhere in the shop
- and workroom, many of them expertly tailored and stitched together by Uncle Gary himself. And he told
- me about the animals they came from, where they lived, what they ate and how they behaved. And adjacent
- to the shop,
- was an enormous refrigerated room where the furs were stored. To an adult, this was simply climate control
- storage. To us kids, it was an Arctic expedition. And we'd go hunting the yeti in it. We played in there.
- And in retrospect, I realized that there are many reasons you should not allow small children to play
- inside a refrigerator the size of a small apartment. I'm not quite sure that he knew that we were in there.
- Uncle Gary's fascination with the natural world extended far beyond the first shop. He watched birds,
- insects, and squirrels. He garden and planted flowers and trees. And at one point, my mother claims,
- he built a rocking chair for the backyard squirrel. Yes, a rocking chair for the squirrel. I realize
- that this sounds like something that I made up for the speech. But my mother swears that she and Uncle
- Gary actually watched the squirrel sit in it.
- And my Aunt Noly was considerably not amused, but the children of the daycare loved it. So how could
- you not think of Uncle Gary as a hero? He was just great. He was also, in my opinion, the best gift
- giver in the world, if a little eccentric in his choices. When my parents got married, Uncle Gary ignored
- the wedding registry entirely. He didn't buy china. He didn't buy silver.
- He certainly didn't buy one of those fondue pots everyone was crazy about in the 60s. Instead, he gave
- them an original, unframed, yellowed, crumbled newspaper from 1793 announcing the beheading of the Queen
- of France, Marie Antoinette. How romantic. It's exactly what a young couple needs starting out. But.
- Every Christmas and for my birthday, he gave me little boxes of loose rocks, crystals, minerals,
- and deodes, and I loved it. Pyrite or fool's gold was my favorite. If it was sparkly, I was at magpie,
- and he knew that. And I still have a bunch of these boxes sitting around, and occasionally people come
- across them, and they're just like, Justin, why do you have these boxes of rocks? Well, to me, they're
- not just rocks. They're wonderful gifts from him.
- And looking back, I realized that he was teaching me that the world was worth looking at closely, and
- to appreciate rocks, and teaching me to appreciate lots of things that go unnoticed. And it was in this
- spirit that we went to museums, nature centers, historic sites, pretty much anywhere that contained
- an artifact, an animal, dead or alive, or a historic marker, which he now gets, which is fabulous.
- But looking back, I blame him entirely for my career in museums. He spent years convincing me that history
- and old things mattered, and I believed him. He taught me that history wasn't trapped in books or behind
- glass. It was alive. It was happening right now. It was all around us. It was just waiting to be noticed.
- Now I work at a history museum surrounded by old things, curious people, stories, objects, questions,
- and taxidermy, thus fur. So apparently his brainwashing has been successful and I am a product of him.
- He cared deeply about people, particularly children. For many years he supported a mission in Peru that
- provided food, clothing, shoes, and school necessities to poor families.
- He helped raise money for the mission because he couldn't bear the thought of children going hungry
- or of being denied the chance to go to school. He had seen enough poverty in his lifetime, and he wanted
- to do something about it. And he did. And that was my Uncle Gary. And that was also the life he and
- my Aunt Noli built together. They had four amazing children, Richard, Ginger, Linda, and Judy. And they
- built a life around family, work, children, and service.
- Uncle Gary and Aunt Noly were partners in every sense of the word. They worked side by side for years,
- both at home and in their businesses. In the morning, Uncle Gary helped with the daycare arrivals.
- At noon, he helped Aunt Noly serve lunch and set up the cots for nap time. While the children slept,
- Aunt Noly might help him in linings and fur coats or work on sewing and storage. And in the late afternoon,
- Uncle Gary would often appear in the yard to play with the children.
- and only got everything ready for them to go home. It was a busy life, but it was a life they built
- together. And it was a life that was built around other people. I had grown up watching old Hollywood
- movies, so I assumed war heroes were supposed to be tough and imposing. They barked orders, they stared
- dramatically into the distance. Uncle Gary was not like that at all. He was calm, patient, generous.
- And yet, this was the same man who had faced some of the most brutal circumstances imaginable
- and demonstrated extraordinary courage in the middle of them. When I was in high school, Life magazine
- published a photographic spread featuring living medal of honor recipients, and there was Uncle Gary.
- I remember looking at that photograph and realizing I was looking at a person I thought I already knew.
- The man that photographed was the same man who loved children, family, nature,
- and fascinating things. But there in the pages of life was Gary Kisters, the war hero surrounded by
- war heroes. It took me a moment to understand that these weren't two different people. They were the
- same man. As a child, Uncle Gary was my hero. As a teenager, I discovered
- But I wasn't the only one who thought he was a hero. He had been a hero to the nation for 30 years before
- I was even born. And while I was initially a little resentful that the rest of the world seemed to have
- discovered my uncle before I did, that feeling quickly gave way to immense pride. And the older I get,
- the more remarkable his life after the war seems to me. Because he was a rather shy and humble man,
- he wasn't particularly interested in being important. He was interested in doing good.
- He cared deeply about his family and his faith. He cared about children. He cared about people he had
- never met in Peru. He appreciated all the strange and wonderful things most people walk right past.
- And he was interested in everything else except himself. Courage does not always look the way we expect
- it to. Sergeant Kister showed extraordinary courage when the world demanded it of him. But the man I
- knew showed me another kind of courage.
- The courage to remain kind, generous, and engaged in the world. After seeing so much of what was terrible
- in the world, he spent the rest of his life paying attention to what was wonderful about it. And he
- continued to give of himself. And I think that that's a remarkable way to live. And maybe that's why,
- all these years later, when I think of Gary Kisters, I don't think first about medals. I think about
- dinosaur poop.
- And how lucky he was to have had that. And I think about a man who came home from the brutality of war
- and remained one of the most unique and kindest people I have ever known. That is Gary Kisters, the
- man I knew. And that is the hero I wanted to share with all of you today. And now there are people in
- the audience that are part of his family. Three of his children are here. Dick's not here.
- Is he? OK. So we have Judy and Ginger right up here. And then Linda is in the back. And then we have
- several of his grandchildren that I was in the daycare center with, although they were much smaller
- than me. And they are all here. We have Lisa and Betsy and Karen and Deborah and Michael. Is there anyone
- else that I can't see? I'm sorry?
- And Lauren, OK. I'm sorry I can't see you back there, Lauren. So thank you very much. I appreciated
- sharing Uncle Gary with you. As I said, he was one of my favorite people ever. So thank you for coming
- out. Thanks to all three of you guys. And that's the formal part of the program today, except for the snacks.
- But if any of you would like to share a memory of Gary Kister's, you're welcome to do it. We don't want
- to go on and on. But if you do, please come up here. I'll just stand here. Justin reminded me of something.
- I had the privilege of living next to his aunt and uncle at 609 North Dunn. And that was in 1979.
- And I always noticed this gentle man that would have a little kid in his arm with his shirt off, being
- just the coolest guy. He was always working in his garden. And the important story, as you told it,
- Justin, was also about Noli, who was a partner of his. I'm glad you said something about the crystals,
- because I have one.
- In my previous life, I was on Bloomington City Council from 1980 to 87. And Jerry knocked on my door
- one day and said, I guess you're the guy I need to talk to. So I said, sure. So he lived at the corner
- of 10th and Dunn. And there was some problems with the drainage at 10th and Dunn.
- capacity as his city councilman, I called up Public Works, John Freeman, and said, hey, do you have
- to help me? We need to take care of this issue. And it was done
- Yeah, I got to know him. I literally lived next door to him. And, you know, I saw the kids. And it was
- just, you know, he was a gentle soul. And Noli was an incredible person. And they were just wonderful
- human beings. So thank you for that interview. Anyone else?
- Linda that's actually documented by one of the people in his battalion they recall Winston Churchill
- came to the
- and then zipped up and turned back around and said, hey, thanks. Wasn't he a painter? I think he was
- painting then, when he asked Dad for a light. Because Dad was standing, I think Dad was supposed to
- be protecting him or something, while he was painting. And he asked Dad for a light, and Dad said,
- oh man, I don't smoke. Why don't I smoke?
- Why don't I smoke? Okay. Well, thank you for coming today. This has been great. Thank you so much. We'll
- be around if you want to chat with each other, with us, with Kister's family, get something to eat and
- drink. And thank you so much for coming today.