By ALAN HOSKINS
KANSAS CITY, KAN. ----- Christmas this year came early for one of Sunflower Hills’ most popular volunteers.
A volunteer bringing out golf carts at Sunflower Hills for the last 26 years, 87-year-old Gerry Ruble of Kansas City, Kan., spent a memorable and sometimes tearful Veterans Day in Washington, D.C. Nov. 11.
A Navy veteran of World War II, Ruble was one of 25 veterans from Kansas City flown to Washington on an Honor Flight of the nation capital’s most famous monuments.“Jerry Brotherson and George Todd, who I knew from the golf course, had both gone on the trip and spoke really high of it so I signed up about a year ago,” says Ruble. “It’s all done by donations so they stopped it for awhile but then started up again and I got a call about a month ahead of time.”
As it turned out, it was better than expected.
“When we got off the plane at Reagan Airport, there was a big crowd of people lined up on both sides of the ramp to meet us, shake our hands and thank us – people of all ages, all the way from Boy Scouts to military personnel. That was the first time I teared up, it really made us feel like we were something.”
About half of the 25 veterans were accompanied by guardians or caretakers but every vet had a personal ‘guardian’ while in Washington including about eight or nine vets in wheel chairs. “My guardian, Darlene Christianson, did an excellent job caring for an old man,” said Ruble.
Provided an official escort, the veterans were bussed to their primary destination, the World War II monument, and then later to the Vietnam, Korean and Air Force monuments, Lincoln Memorial and Iwo Jima Monument.
“The Washington Monument was still under repair; they took the scaffolding down a couple of days after we were there,” said Ruble.
