New book profiles Indiana veterans, including those from Logansport, Kokomo, Peru

Yahoo

04-04-2025

A new book, 'Beyond Belief: True Stories of Indiana Heroes that Defy Comprehension,' profiles over 200 Indiana veterans ranging from the Civil War to the War on Terror. It includes a forward from Senator Todd Young.
Compiled by the husband-and-wife team of C. Douglas and Pamela M. Sterner, the 500-plus page book features veterans from across the state including Logansport, Kokomo and Peru.
The book is the 120th that C. Douglas Sterner has worked on and is an anthology. Sterner said he wrote 70 percent of the profiles inside it and has a team that helps him. He stressed focus on the book, the ninth in a series he hopes will include all 50 states, should be on the veterans and not the people who assemble the collection of profiles.
Previous books were more focused on a specific branch of the military but he was inspired to do statewide collections when he wanted to write about the two men, one an army veteran and the other a Navy petty officer, who stopped a mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs.
'I was going to write their story but it didn't quite fit the format of my books so I decided I was just going to do a book on Colorado heroes,' Sterner said.
The book opens with Lieutenant Richard Antrim, a native of Peru, Indiana. Sterner chose Antrim's story to open the book because it was a story that had stuck with him for 27 years.
Antrim received multiple military honors for his bravery and leadership during WWII and as a Japanese prisoner of war for over three years.
'We think of heroes as being the guy who goes and knocks out a machine gun nest,' Sterner said. 'What Richard Antrim did was just an amazing act to save the life of a fellow soldier.'
He said that his desire to share Antrim's story was one of the reason Indiana was one of the first 10 books in the series.
Antrim's story began when he saved all but one of his crew members from the sinking U.S.S. Pope. The crew drifted in life boats for three days only to be found by a Japanese warship and taken prisoner.
One story of bravery had Antrim convincing his Japanese captors of a better way to construct trenches. From the surface, Antrim's work looked good but when flying overhead, one could see the series of trenches spelled out U.S. Thus, Allied fighter pilots knew not to bomb the site because there were prisoners below.
Many of Antrim's fellow prisoners recalled a night in April of 1942 when Antrim watched one of his men receive a severe beating for a perceived slight from a Japanese guard. Antrim begged for mercy toward his friend only to see the Japanese soldiers decide to have a trial. The Japanese soldiers decided Antrim's friend was indeed guilty and would now receive 50 lashes.
As Antrim proceeded to watch the soldiers beat his friend, he reportedly raised his voice and demanded that he receive the remainder of his friend's lashes. The unexpected show of strength rattled the guards and the beating seized. The story goes that the POWs received better treatment for some time following the incident.
Antrim was also present at the Hindenburg disaster prior to the war.
The book details other Hoosier heroes such as Logansport's Ora J. Cohee. Cohee, a 1905 Logansport High School graduate, was a first lieutenant and chaplain for the 34th Infantry Regiment when he was deployed to France in 1918. He saved two soldiers during a battle by carrying one over his shoulder while helping carry a stretcher with his free hand. He would go on to serve in WWII as Theater Chaplain for the Pacific Ocean areas. Cohee became known as Indiana's Fighting Chaplain.
Raymond Lanterman was an artist who graduated Kokomo High School in 1934. In 1940, he left his art career behind in Chicago and returned to Kokomo to enlist. He was assigned to the Schofield Barracks in Hawaii where he was a witness to the Pearl Harbor bombing on Dec. 7, 1941.
Lanternman felt his art background would prove useful in mapmaking and engineering and he was sent to the Corps of Engineers School in Virginia.
He was one of the first soldiers to land on the beaches on D-Day with the mission to clear mines and obstacles for the incoming infantry. When Lanternman witnessed one of his engineers shot while working to create a safe passage for the soldiers, he ran out into the open beach to continue doing the engineer's work until he, too, was struck down by gunfire. He survived and that night he was finally able to be evacuated to safety.
Other local and regional heroes featured in the book include William Kepner (Kokomo), William Horney (Logansport), Hiram Bearss (Peru), Thomas Garigan (Winamac) and Paul Carlton (Bunker Hill).
Sterner said the Indiana book brought a couple of surprises that hadn't happened before. One, a veteran's daughter contributed her father's story to the book. Crawfordsville's Michael Shropshire, Indiana's first highly decorated veteran during the War on Terror, also provided a first-person account of his experiences.
It took approximately two months to compile the book. He hopes to publish two books in the series per year.
Sterner and his crew's efforts have already led to one of the Hoosier heroes receiving a new honor. Logansport's Cohee will become the oldest member of the Logansport High School Military Wall of Honor. Cohee passed away in 1960 while living in Texas.
Sterner served in Vietnam and two months after he returned home, he discovered his best friend, Specialist Fourth Class Jaime Pacheco of Hobb, New Mexico, had been killed in combat. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.
'I was determined to make sure he was never forgotten,' he said. 'It was my motivation to start doing these other stories. I've been told this is how I deal with my PTSD by writing the stories of my comrades to make sure they are never forgotten.
Those interested in ordering a copy of 'Beyond Belief: True Stories of Indiana Heroes that Defy Comprehension' may do so by visiting herobooks.org. The book is also available on Amazon for $19.95.