Ormal E. Guinn

89

Born in 1926 in Armstrong, Iowa

Currently living in Armstrong, IA.

U.S. Navy World War II Veteran

World War II was still raging in 1944 when 17 year-old Ormal Guinn left rural northern Iowa and volunteered for the U.S. Navy. After training, he was assigned to the USS Woodford KA 86, a large cargo ship, in the Pacific Theater. “I was on her when they commissioned her, and I helped take her out of commission 22 months later,” he states. “We went all over the Pacific, through the Panama Canal carrying everything from 5,600-tons of ammunition, to a ship filled with Kansas City beer.”

What Guinn witnessed and experienced during his military duty still affects the World War II veteran, even after all these years. The memories and emotions overtake him at times.

Read more about Ormal E. Guinn's memories of serving our country at a time of war in the up-coming “Portrait of a Veteran” Photo Project book.

Donald Tietje

Age 78

Born on his family's farm in the Tenhassen Township, Martin County (Wilbert, Minnesota) in 1937

Now lives in Fairmont, Minn.

U.S. Army Korean War and Vietnam War Veteran

Donald Tietje's military career began in 1957 when, following in his late brother Herb's footsteps, Donald enlisted in the Army Reserve and was part of the government's “Federal Reserve” program. “You signed-up for a six year enlistment,” Tietje explained. “It was two years of active duty and four years in the reserves.” He was activated at the start of the Viet Nam War in 1961 and also was stationed in Korea for a year with the 181^th Signal Corps depot where he worked repairing radio and electronic equipment.

Tietji is currently the Commander of the Korean War Veterans Post Chapter 254, former Minnesota American Legion 2^nd District Commander (2011-2012) and a former VFW Post Commander.

You can read more about Mr. Tietje's military experience in the planned coffee table-style photo book “Portrait of a Veteran.”

John Hilgendorf

85

Korean War Veteran

Born on the family farm in Ormsby, MN. in 1930

Now lives in Welcome, MN.

John Hilgendorf spent the first year as a baby living in a clay block garage that his father built on the family farm. It was a humble beginning, as simple shelter, until they were able to start building a house on the property. “There weren't any buildings on the land,” Hilgendorf remembers.

At the age of 23, the Minnesota native was swore in to the U.S. Army on the day before Thanksgiving in 1952. By the first part of 1953, he was shipped overseas to fight in the Korean War. At first, Hilgendorf worked as a heavy equipment operator. “The Major asked me if I knew anything about plumbing,“ he recalls. Before long he was helping maintaining the waterworks for a prisoner of war camp.

Read more about Mr. Hilgendorf in the up-coming book “Portrait of a Veteran.”

Image and words © 2015 Joseph Kreiss Photography.

After a certain number of portraits have be amassed, and adequate funding becomes available to cover costs, the veteran's images and stories will be printed as a traveling photo gallery exhibit for public viewing. The ultimate goal is to put the images and stories into a beautiful coffee-table-style book. A copy of the book will be given to each veteran and their family. Other copies of the book will be sold to help cover costs and expenses, with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the Wounded Warrior Project, MN.

Donations of any amount can be made in the name of the veteran. An Honor Roll of Memorial Donors will be published and updated regularly on social media and in the photo book and displayed at the gallery exhibits.

Korean War Veteran Hurley Morris

Hurly Morris 

Korean War Veteran
Age 83
Born in Ceylon, MN. in 1932
Lives now in Ceylon, MN.
 

Minnesota native Hurly Morris spent about 13 months in Korea during that conflict. He entered the U.S. Army in 1952 when he was 20 years old, and was part of the 8th Army Signal Corps working as a field radio repairman with the 557 Signal Relay Company.

Read more about Mr. Morris in the up-coming book “Portrait of a Veteran.”

Image and words © 2015 Joseph Kreiss Photography.

- Information on the "Portrait of a Veteran Photo Project -

After a certain number of portraits have be amassed, and adequate funding becomes available to cover costs, the veteran's images and stories will be printed as a traveling photo gallery exhibit for public viewing. The ultimate goal is to put the images and stories into a beautiful coffee-table-style book. A copy of the book will be given to each veteran and their family. Other copies of the book will be sold to help cover costs and expenses, with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the Wounded Warrior Project, MN.

Donations of any amount can be made in the name of the veteran. An Honor Roll of Memorial Donors will be published and updated regularly on social media and in the photo book and displayed at the gallery exhibits.

Please contact Joseph Kreiss at email: jeepinjoseph@hotmail.com
or message me via this page on Facebook.

Behind the Scenes

On Location

It's not fancy, but it gets the job done. My on-location equipment still fills a large travel tote, a couple of light stand bags, tripod bag and camera equipment bags. I have added stands to hold-up the back drop materials to my grip. I think I need to get one of those folding roller carts for load-in and load-out ease on my back! This was the on-location two-speedlight/softboxlighting set-up I used for the "Portrait of a Veteran" Photo Project session recently at the Valley Vue Care Center in Armstrong, IA. 

More veteran's portraits to come! If you want to financially support the "Portrait of a Veteran" Photo Project, please let me know. I'll have information on how you or your business or community group can contribute and help get the coffee table-style book published to give to these pictured veterans and their families!

Doing Her Part To Serve During War

Maxine Brones

Age 92

Born in Maple Hill, (Emmet County) Iowa in 1922

Now lives in Armstrong, IA

U.S. Navy Reserve WAVES World War II Veteran

With a family military history going back to World War I, Iowa native Maxine Brones also wanted to serve her country at a time of need. World War II was heating up and men were needed at the battle fronts, so Maxine put down the scissors, combs and curling irons of her beauty operator career and joined “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service,” or WAVES in April 1943. 

 

“My Dad had been in the Navy during World War I, so he encouraged me to go in the Navy,” Maxine recalls. “My Mom didn't like it, and my brother was too young to go in, but she came to Naval Air Station Norfolk to see me.”

WAVES was established on July 30, 1942 as a wartime division of the United States Navy Reserve that consisted entirely of women. Up until this time, women were not allowed in the military. A large proportion of WAVES did clerical work, but some took positions in the aviation community, medical professions, communications, intelligence, science and technology. WAVES could not serve aboard combat ships or aircraft and initially were restricted to duty in the continental United States.

Maxine was among the first group of women to train and serve as WAVES. “I was 21 years old when my mom and sister put me on the train in Esterville, Iowa and I had orders to stay on all the way to Hunter College in New York,” where she did her basic training. “All the way there we picked up more girls. By the time we got there that train was loaded.”

Within their first year, WAVES was 27,000 women strong.

Maxine spent two and a half years in the Personnel Department at the Norfolk, Virginia Naval Air Station, before being transferred to NAS Glenview, Ill. “We relieved the men for sea duty. That was our job. I handled the honorable discharges and transfers of the boys. That was a busy time of the war,” she says.

Maxine says the most memorial part of her time spent in the Navy was the friendship and the bond between the women. “Some were rich and some were poor. It didn't matter.”

After nearly three years in WAVES, Maxine returned home to start up her own beauty shop. Maxine recalls one woman asking her why she didn't get a man while in the service. “I was there to serve my country, not get a man,” she says proudly.

Carroll L. Monsen

Age 82

Born in Rake, Iowa in 1934

Now lives in Esterville, Iowa

U.S. Army Korean War Veteran

Carroll Monsen grew up during some pretty tough times on the family farm in Iowa. “We didn't have electricity on the farm,” he remembers. “I walked behind a team of horses, mowing 20 acres of hay.”

Monsen was 19 years old when he “had a little riff with my brother and dad on the farm. The next day I went to town and volunteered for the Army.” That was in November of 1953. He would find himself in the Korean War by April of 1954, spending a year and a half there with the U.S. Army.

“I drove Jeep for the Combat Engineer's company commander,” Monsen recalls. “One day he asked if I could cook, so I became a cook.” Cooking didn't exclude him from other duties. “When the sirens went off, I grabbed a 50 caliber machine gun.”

Monsen was also in charge of taking enemy prisoners to the stockade when they were brought in from the front lines. “The commander said to me, 'If they try to escape, kill 'em.' That really stuck in my mind,” he says. “I'll tell you, that's a weird feeling to have him tell me to do that.”

Another war memory for Monsen was when he was told to take a case of hand grenades up to the hills. “The pins in those grenades had almost rusted though, making them very dangerous,” he recalls. “The commander told me to just set them out up there and leave them. He didn't want me to try and set them off. He said if I did, I would have been the first guy in orbit!”

Ranks were frozen at the time for many soldiers, including himself, so Monsen left the Army in September of 1955. “They tried to get me to re-enlist, which would give you another stripe

, but I said no way. I got a bunch of milk cows waiting for me back home.”

Story and photograph © 2015 Joseph Kreiss Photography