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Area veterans’ stories told

Mirror photo Patrick Waksmunski / Don Glass of Altoona holds a photocopy of the Western Union telegram informing his parents that his brother, U.S. Marine Corps Private 1st Class Edward R. Glass, was killed in action on June 9, 1945, in the Japanese Theatre of war.

Bronze, stone and resin statues memorializing fallen soldiers stand silent vigil throughout America, a stark reminder of the blood price paid by those who gave all.

Etched at the bottom of the statues are often the names of men and women who sacrificed their futures to ensure their fellow countrymen could thrive in peace, but names can lose importance without faces and memories to accompany them.

Earlier this year, two Altoona Area High School teachers and more than 100 students set out to put a face to the names of those veterans from around Altoona who died during World War II.

In the face of a pandemic, they succeeded in compiling a 700-page compendium of 355 men and one woman, who sacrificed their lives in the fight against fascism and oppression.

Seventy-five years later, those veterans and their service still impact the daily lives of many Altoonans.

Bernard Good, U.S. Army

A native of Juniata, Good enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard before being sent overseas with 110th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division.

Good died fighting in the Battle of the Bulge on Dec. 20, 1944.

While he was buried in Luxemburg, his memory lives on at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 8685 in Juniata, which is named in his honor.

“As a vet, you feel a connection to this sort of thing,” said Dustin McElheny, VFW Post No. 8685 post commander. “It’s a wonderful way to preserve (Good’s) memory.”

Having served two tours — one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan — in the Army during Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom, McElheny said he rarely thinks about preserving the memory of his own service. But remembering those who didn’t return is paramount, he said.

“Each generation has their own set of fighting men and women,” McElheny said. “But as that generation ages, those memories fade. Remembering the dead in this fashion is important, because it’s part of our history as a country.”

Veterans often shy away from telling their own stories, so having a group of high school students step up and take on the task is commendable to the utmost degree, he said.

“This puts a face to a name,” McElheny said. “It’s no longer a family or personal memory. It’s now an area memory. These men are now more to society than a name on a wall.”

Regis Watt, a 73-year-old U.S. Navy veteran and member of Post No. 8685, said he was aware of the book project and initially worried about its accuracy.

“I wasn’t sure where they’d get all the information,” Watt explained. “But they did, and they did a great job putting it all together.”

Clyde Edelblute Jr., Army

After graduating from Altoona High School, Edelblute followed the footsteps of his father, who fought in World War I, and joined the Army.

Transferring to the infantry from air cadet school, Edelblute joined the 409th Infantry Regiment of the 103rd Infantry Division, and shipped off to France in 1944.

Weeks after arriving, he died fighting on the front lines in St. Die, France, on Nov. 16, 1944.

“Clyde Jr. would’ve been my mother’s oldest brother,” said Lee Appleman, a 70-year-old semi-retired musician. “I was born after he died, so I did not know him.”

Drum said he also didn’t know he had an aunt, and only learned of her existence after reading Edelblute’s entry in the book.

“He was a good-looking guy, very much loved, and his death was a big family tragedy,” Appleman said.

Although service is a tradition in Appleman’s family, only the two Edelblutes served in combat, he said.

Appleman, his father and older brother all served as military musicians.

“My dad loved being in the military, and he started out in the infantry,” Appleman said. “But he was not very athletic. He was a musician, and they eventually put him in the band.”

After completing his enlistment, Appleman’s father joined the Pennsylvania National Guard 28th Infantry Division Band.

“It was a big deal around our house growing up,” Appleman said. “My brother joined the Navy right out of high school.”

Despite his family’s history of service, Appleman said he was a little slow to fall in step.

“The (Vietnam War) draft was on,” he said. “The No. 1 impetus for me joining up was I would’ve been drafted into the infantry and sent to Vietnam.”

Instead, Appleman joined the Army band and toured the states playing gigs for officers’ graduation ceremonies and marching in parades across the Midwest.

Edelblute was rarely mentioned during his childhood, but there was an emphasis on service to one’s country, Appleman said.

“This is a wonderful book,” he said. “It helped me find out a little more about my family.”

Edward ‘Bob’ Glass, U.S. Marine Corps

One of seven siblings, Glass’ family was tight-knit before he joined the Marines and deployed to the Pacific theater.

A radio operator, Glass fought the Japanese for weeks during the Battle for Okinawa before he was killed in action June 9, 1945.

The Allies declared victory over Japan 67 days later, on Aug. 15, 1945.

“My brother Bob and I were very close,” said Don Glass, an 87-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran. “I was 11 when he went away to fight the war.”

With a large family, space was at a premium in the Glass household, so the two brothers shared a bed. During Edward Glass’ enlistment, he wrote to Don Glass and sent him a Japanese dog tag and a Purple Heart he earned.

“He wrote us about missing the family and being busy with duties,” Don Glass said. “When he was in Camp Pendleton, California, he participated in a (military) bomb explosion (exercise) in the flats of Nevada. We think it could have been an atomic bomb test.”

Military service is common in the Glass family. Don Glass said his father and his four brothers all served, in addition to several cousins and nephews.

Susan Franks, Don Glass’ niece and a 54-year-old Altoona native who is an administrator for the Altoona Area School District, said the family prides itself on its service to others.

“My brother and three of his five sons served, too,” she said. “I think the examples of the men of the family serving have traveled through the generations. We’re also very active in the community through our churches and volunteerism.”

For Don Glass, his brother’s death was a dark time.

“The family was very devastated, and we were a very close family,” he said. “My parents made the decision that he would be buried with his buddies on Okinawa, but later when (the military) expanded an airfield near the graves, they sent his body home.”

“The Last Full Measure” was a surprise to Don Glass, but a welcome one.

“I never dreamed of something like this coming out of this generation of high school students,” he said. “But, it pleases me to see they’re doing it.”

Franks said the research component for the book was astonishing.

“It’s a fantastic book,” she said. “They put so much into this project.”

Leo Sopata, U.S. Army Air Corps, Robert McBurney, Army

As Jim Lowe’s AAHS class delved into the personal histories of Altoona’s fallen sons, AAHS history teacher Shane McBurney explored his own family’s military background.

On his mother’s side of the family, Leo Sopata served as a radio operator on a B-29 Superfortress and died Dec. 7, 1944, during a mission over China.

Robert McBurney, from his father’s side, however, fought on the ground with the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division and died Nov. 21, 1944, in a major offensive to cross the Roer River in Germany.

“Robert was a journalist before the war,” Shane McBurney said. “He wrote for the Altoona Tribune as a reporter and editor.”

Sopata was a “nerd” and an excellent student with a fascination for radios, he said.

“It’s kind of blowing my mind learning about my family’s military service,” Shane McBurney said, explaining he only recently learned about his relation to Sopata and Robert McBurney.

After the two men died, however, the McBurney family moved away from military service and spoke little of their veterans.

“I also found out my great-great-great-grandfather served (the Union) in the Civil War — some Spanish-American war vets — and my (maternal) grandfather’s dad was a World War I vet,” Shane McBurney said. “It’s like our family, until recently, served in every major American war.”

Now reacquainted with that history, he said he feels a growing connection — in large part because of the book written by students right next door to his classroom.

“You always see ‘X amount of men died in this war,'” Shane McBurney said. “But that means nothing until you know someone who died.”

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