Millersburg Honor Flight recipeint hails trip as ‘wonderful experience’
by Peter Jakey–Managing Editor
Walter Szymoniak was 21-years-old when he joined the Army. The year was 1942. He was working at the Ford Rouge Plant in Dearborn when he enlisted on his birthday.
Szymoniak was part of what former news anchor Tom Brokaw described as the greatest generation. Those that grew up during the Great Depression had to go off and to fight for the country in World War II, the deadliest military conflict in history.
More than 100,000 American military personnel died in the Pacific War.
Szymoniak was right there, serving in India and helping to supply Merrill’s Marauder’s in South Asia.
He delivered supplies over the Ledo Road built by the Western Allies to supply the Chinese as an alternative to the Burma Road that had been cut off by the Japanese in 1942. It was later renamed the Stillwell Road after Gen. Joseph Stillwell. He was in India for the two years of his service time.
He came home and eventually settled back in his hometown, Millersburg. It’s where he was born and raised, and then raised a family of his own.
After the war, he did not get enough work at the auto plants, so he came home and started working on the Great Lakes in June 1946. Following 35 years on the lakes, he retired as captain of the Irvin L. Clymer in 1981.
Today, in a modest home along Szymoniak Highway out in the country west of the village, the 94-year-old native son is living a content life.
Even though he cannot see very well and is considered legally blind, he is still active, being part of a local liars club in Millersburg.
“There are four or five of us and we tell lies for an hour or so and have a sandwich,” said Walter.
Because of his age and failing eyesight, Szymoniak was bumped up the list of World War II veterans to go on the next Honor Flight to Washington, D.C.
It was a quick one-day trip to the nation’s capital to allow World War II veterans to see the national monument built in their honor.
Szymoniak went Oct. 13 out of Traverse City. “I still tingle when I think of it,” said Walter, reflecting back on the visit last month. “What a wonderful experience that was. It was out of this world.”
Szymoniak said the people he encountered really impressed him.
“Just ordinary people,” he said at his kitchen table this week. “The politicians, they were are all out of sight. When we go in, there were 25 soldiers saluting. There were people lined up two and three deep saying ‘thank you for serving. Thank you for serving’ — shaking our hands and giving us hugs. It was that way all day long.”
Szymoniak said the words are hard to come by to express what it all meant. “I never, ever had anything like that in my lifetime,” said Walter. It was not only his first trip to the National World War II monument, but his first visit to Washington, D.C.
His daughter Denise Rawlins in Texas found out about Honor Flight and got him on the Oct. 13 flight, and out of the blue, told him he was going. “I thanked her a thousand times for what she did,” said Walter.