LITTLETON — Staff Sgt. Edward E. Butler was a belly gunner in a B-24 and flew 36 missions in the Pacific during World War II.
His bright blue jacket has the names of the planes he flew in and the names of the places where his crew dropped bombs on the Japanese.
On Tuesday, he was at Littleton’s Ketring Park for Veterans Day — joined by a couple hundred veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Dozens of family members and well-wishers swelled the crowd to around 300.
“It means a lot to me,” Butler said of Veterans Day. “All these guys, I loved them all.”
He has memories — like the day of April 2, 1945, when the bombers surprised the Japanese fleet in Hong Kong and with precision unleashed thousand-pound bombs on the ships below.
As they pulled out of the bombing run, a shell hit the No. 3 engine, putting it out of commission. They made it back to a Pacific island and landed safely.
Rick Dawson, who served with the Marines in Vietnam, also was at the ceremony.
His thoughts, he said, were primarily about “the older guys” — the World War II and Korea veterans.
Dawson knows those men and women are dying. He knows they went through what he went through.
“You can’t compare wars,” Dawson said. “Bullets are bullets” no matter which war they were fired in.
Wayne Coleman, 82, guarded Japanese prisoners in the South Pacific during World War II.
“I think it means a great deal to the country,” Coleman said of Veterans Day. “To me, it means honoring these people who fought these battles and lost their lives. It needs to be remembered.”
Littleton Mayor Doug Clark told the group that “we are here today not to glorify war and not to honor war.”
“We are here today to honor the individuals who served their country — those who answered the call of duty. We honor those who served their country, and thereby their fellow citizens.”
And Bob Daly, who served in the Navy during the Korean War, said the “remembering” done on Nov. 11 “gives true meaning to sacrifice and service — millions of American lives forever altered because they donned a uniform to protect the freedoms and rights we take for granted.”
