July 27, 2020 – West Bend, WI – A very nice tribute to a pair of World War II veterans in West Bend as the Kettle Color Cruise provided a personal parade Sunday, July 26 to Army veteran Richard “Doc” Gibson and Navy veteran Donald James Cook.
Parade organizers, including James and Cindy Mohns, Cook’s daughter and son-in-law, and the Orban Foundation for Veterans, gathered at 10:30 a.m. at the VFW Post on Sand Drive. Floats were decorated, the color guard was aligned and drivers were given their marching orders.
The first parade stop was on Indiana Avenue. It was Cook’s birthday; he was turning 95. Drafted in 1943 a couple months after turning 18 Cook said he decided on being a Navy man. “They asked me what branch of the service I wanted to be in and since I didn’t like walking, I chose the Navy,” he said.
Basic training was at the Farragut Naval Training Station in Farragut, Idaho. “I went to diesel school and to Navy Pier in Chicago,” he said. “Then I went to another school at the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan and after that I went to Solomons, Maryland and got on a training ship and we trained crews on amphibian ships.”
Cook then received orders. “We went through the Panama Canal and ended up in the Pacific Theater,” Cook said. “That’s where I was when the war was over and I had enough points after two-and-a-half years and then I came home.”
The second parade was at New Perspectives Senior Living. Richard “Doc” Gibson, 95, served with the US Army’s 104th Infantry Division as an infantry soldier, landing in France in 1944 and pushed into Belgium. He became a medical doctor after the war.
Doc and his wife watched the parade from their outdoor, second-story porch. Their family gathered below.
