War is long over, but memories endure for Monroe veteran

On June 5, 1944, just before D-Day, Joseph Burkard jumped from an airplane. His regiment landed about four miles inland from the beaches of Normandy.

Their job was to capture bridges, to clear the way for more than 150,000 Allied troops who would land on the French coast to fight the Nazis.

The Monroe man was in the Army’s 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Division. They were indisputable heroes.

“I was no hero,” the 88-year-old Burkard said. He paused, his eyes filling with tears, before quietly finishing a long-held thought — “but I was with some heroes.”

Burkard was joined Wednesday by visitors gathered at his home to hear memories of a war that ended 66 years ago. A team from Providence Hospice and Home Care of Snohomish County came not only to listen, but to honor Burkard for his military service.

The World War II veteran was recognized with a “pinning ceremony.”

“Thank you for your service to our nation. Thank you for the sacrifices you made,” said Charlie Tarrell, a chaplain with Providence Hospice, as he gave Burkard an American flag pin embossed with the words, “We Honor Vets.”

The ceremony was part of the We Honor Veterans program. It was started about a year ago by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization along with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Hospice care comforts patients nearing the end of life. With hospice services, medicine is aimed at pain management rather than a disease cure.

Burkard, who suffers from melanoma, has begun hospice care. It allows him to stay in his home with the help of a visiting hospice nurse and other services. Through hospice, Burkard’s companion, Rina Gianfermi, is learning to care for him as his condition changes. He and Gianfermi met on a cruise after Burkard’s wife died.

Tarrell, the chaplain, was joined Wednesday by Providence Hospice nurse Candace Albright, hospice social worker Lilian Ruijters, hospice volunteer Joan Miles, and Connie Wittren, director of the Providence Hospice and Home Care Foundation.

“This is about validation and recognition,” said Jon Radulovic, a spokesman for the Virginia-based National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. He said the We Honor Veterans program is helping veterans talk about momentous experiences that perhaps they have never shared. “We’re discovering a lot about these veterans in their last days,” Radulovic said.

“I had an uncle who was in the Navy during World War II,” Radulovic said. “When he was dying, in the last two weeks of his life, that was the only time he had ever talked about it. Fifty years after the fact, he needed to talk about it,” he said.

Burkard, who spent six and a half years in the Army, insisted Wednesday that “I’ve had a very ordinary life — but a good one.”

Burkard said he fought in several battles in Europe. He saw friends badly wounded. His duty in Europe was finished by January 1945, but the Army sent him to Japan after the war ended.

He and his wife, Eljeanne, raised six children. A native of Wisconsin, Burkard worked many years for Caterpillar Inc. Years after the war, the company sent him to Japan, where he lived for 28 years.

He became close friends with a man who had fought for Japan during World War II. “He had a twinkle in his eye about the U.S. Army,” Burkard said.

Radulovic said that about 1,000 of some 5,000 hospice agencies nationwide are participating in We Honor Veterans. Along with training for hospice workers and volunteers, the program includes a questionnaire asking in detail about military service.

Gestures of honor and stories “can mean a tremendous amount to families,” Radulovic said.

“I really don’t deserve any of this,” Burkard said Wednesday.

Reliving his journey to war and back brought tears and smiles to his face. When he first joined the Army, before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was a bugler. “I had a trumpet. It was a terrifically good job,” he said.

“For about 25 years, none of the fellows wanted to talk about it,” Burkard said. “Then I wanted to talk about it, and no one was interested. Now, more than 50 years later, people are interested.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.