Holly area veteran to travel to Washington D.C. on honor flight mission

GRAND BLANC TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Another group of distinguished veterans will tour the nation’s capital and memorials on June 16 and 17 with Honor Flight Mission 26, which will take off from Flint Bishop International Airport.

We recently caught up with one of the local men who will be on that flight. Cold War veteran Gene Rodgers has traveled the world, but has never been to Washington D.C.

“Shortly out of high school, the Korean War was just started and two of my buddies and myself decided we really didn’t know what we wanted to do with our lives so for some reason, we said let’s join the service,” said Gene Rodgers, Cold War Veteran.

At 19, Gene and those friends joined the United States Army Security Agency.

He served from September 1952 until February 1955, during the Korean and Cold Wars.

“I was at a little post called Herzo Base. and it was in the town of Herzogenaurach,” explained Gene.

That little post in Germany is where he and 99 others were assigned to a specialized mission, one that did not allow them to speak with others about what they did.

“My specialty became picking up morse code messages that dealt with the shipments of strategic materials and troop movements behind the iron curtain,” he said.

Iron curtain was the division of Europe into the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc and the western countries aligned with the United State and NATO.

Along with his unique job responsibilities, Gene says once a month he had a courier assignment.

“When it was your time to go, they strapped a leather pouch onto your wrist. You wore a sidearm. For the first time ever, I wore a 45 and you had two guards with you. and each day we ran that courier,” added Gene.

The information he carried went from Nuremberg to Frankfurt and then Washington D.C., a place he’s eager to visit with his brothers, sisters and guardians on Honor Flight Mission 26.

“To me it’s an honor because I’ve never been to Washington D.C. I’ve been to a lot of places in Europe where the military was engaged in battles and stuff like that, but I’ve never been to Washington,” said Gene.

It will be a time for now, 93-year-old Gene, to reflect and remember.

Gene came back to the states and earned a business administration degree from GMI, now Kettering University, and a MBA from the University of Michigan.

He adds, the Herzo Base where he served in Germany is now the headquarters of Adidas.

Gene is looking forward to visiting the Army Museum where he says he is a founding father.

Note: Mid-Michigan NOW Chief Photojournalist Mike Horne and Stella Daskalakis will once again have the honor of traveling with Honor Flight Mission 26.