tenveterans

TEN VETERANS CHOSEN TO MILITARY HALL OF FAME


From "The Tulsa World," Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sunday, August 8, 2004

The Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame has chosen 10 veterans for induction, the Oklahoma Military Heritage Foundation has announced.

Command Sgt. Maj. Sam Cluck of Wewoka is a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. At retirement, Cluck was a command sergeant major for the Oklahoma Military Department.

First Sgt. Sonia Davis of Talihina fought in the South Pacific during World War II. Davis survived several Japanese prison camps and re-enlisted after the war to serve 22 years in the Army.

Marine Capt. Donald Dickey of Oklahoma City participated in the World War II assaults on Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima, where he suffered severe wounds.

Maj. Gen. Jay Edwards of Oklahoma City spent 28 years in the Air Force, which included 252 combat missions in the Vietnam War.

Sgt. Ralph Lawson of Tulsa served in a special assault unit in the China-Burma-India theater of operations in World War II.

Col. Charles Richmond of Edmond once was the Army's youngest chaplain during World War II. Richmond also served as a regimental chaplain in the Korean War, 45th Infantry Division chaplain after the war and national chaplain of the American Legion.

Brig. Gen. William Rex Wilson of Oklahoma City was a quarter-master and later a finance officer with the 45th Infantry Division in World War II and the Korean War.

Deceased veterans to be inducted are: Delbert Black, Lee Gilstrap and Harry Hughes.

Black, who lived in Orr, served on nine warships during his 30 years in the Navy, including a ship at Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack.

Gilstrap, who lived in Claremore, was a 17-year-old bugler in World War I who threw down his bugle, captured 11 German soldiers and earned the nation's second-highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross.

Hughes, who lived in Lawton, served in numerous commands in World War II and Korea and suffered multiple wounds.

The induction will take place Sept. 18, during the annual banquet of the Oklahoma Military Heritage Foundation at Oklahoma Christian University.

Tickets are $30 each and may be ordered from the Oklahoma Military Heritage Foundation, 2501 E. Memorial, Box 11000, Oklahoma City, OK 73136.

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