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First Lutheran Church, for its size, was one of the more active local churches as shown by the way its parishioners served during World War II.

Al Lochra, a combat veteran with the 100th bomb group based in England, provided most of the information about the church members, past and present, but two e-mails over the past few weeks add to the luster.

Betty Carter, who leads the first-rate Women Veterans Project at UNCG, sent in this information: "Two of our veterans were members of First Lutheran. Virginia 'Ginny' Mattson and Josephine 'Jo' Flynn. Mattson was in the (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services) and Flynn was in the (Women's Army Corps) -- both came to the church after the war and unfortunately, both are now deceased. The first oral history that was done for the Project was done with Ginny."

This leads to a reminder -- I urge all veterans to put their service experiences in writing or on tape, just as now-deceased Ginny did before she died. As a veteran, you have a story to tell -- imagine what a treasure we as a nation would have if all the veterans from the Civil War had had tape recorders and could have told what war was like in 1863 or 1864. What it was really like during the Battle of Gettysburg and the March through Georgia, from the point of view of the average soldier. Fascinating stuff. If we only had it.

So tell your story. It's worth telling and saving.

Another First Lutheran story came in from LeeSa Cornelius: "My father, Elmer 'Red' Engle, joined the church after returning home from World War II. In fact, each of his three children, including me, were baptized by the wonderful Samuel Sox.

"Daddy served in the Navy aboard the USS Guadalcanal. He was a seaman at the time of the capture of the German submarine U-505 which is now in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

"The interesting thing about this is that Daddy has a patch for his uniform that indicated he was a plank owner, which meant he was the first crew to board the newly commissioned aircraft carrier. Years later, a friend worked at a shipyard in Norfolk, Va. I mentioned that my father was on the Guadalcanal and he said they were bringing it into the port for decommissioning. He obtained permission for me to board just before official decommissioning; therefore, what my father was one of the first to do, I was fortunate enough to be one of the last. My father was very proud to be a vet and I hope to keep that alive even though he is now long passed."

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On a personal note, I write about the passing of my wartime airplane commander, Donald Newell, first lieutenant, 15th USAAF RET.

Newell lived in Bristol, Tenn., and over the past several years, we were in occasional contact, either by phone or more often by e-mail. He was such a good guy in the best sense of the word.

During the war, he was the perfect airplane commander (we flew the B-24 heavy bomber). Always competent, always professional. He was our leader, almost natural-born to the role, and the crew would follow him anywhere. He inspired confidence -- when he was at the controls of the plane, the crew simply knew he would get us home safely -- and he did, every time.

We were not close after the war, but I always knew where he lived, and that I could contact him if I needed him. On a personal level, he was the older brother I never had, the guy I always tried to please because I valued his approval. I was a better man for knowing Don Newell.

And now there are three of us left from the original crew of 10. Besides me, there is Al Ramirez from Texas, who was our co-pilot, and Ray Rader from Washington state, who was our ball-turret gunner. Rader suffered a stroke recently but has partially recovered.

We are part of a whole WWII generation. Originally there were 16 million of us who wore the uniform from 1941 to 1946. There are fewer than 2 million of us left.

• • •

In my final column for 2007, I listed the names of those veterans who passed on in that year. There were 16 names listed: 13 fought in WWII, one fought in WWII and Korea and one veteran fought in Vietnam. For one name, I had no other information other than that he was a veteran. In the supplemental list in a February column, four were veterans of WWII and there was one veteran of the Korean War.

The deceased veterans for 2008, listed in the final column for 2008, also totaled 16: 15 fought in WWII and one was a veteran of both Korea and Vietnam. The supplemental list will be published in the next Veterans column.

Contract Ned Harrison at vetspeak@earthlink.net