‘It's honoring those who gave all': Chesterton commemorates Memorial Day
Don Pratt reported for duty as he always does every Memorial Day as a member of the Honor Guard for American Legion Post 170 in Chesterton.
Pratt's job is to hold the American flag upright.
He has made one concession in that he brings a chair with him nowadays. After all, he is 92 years old.
This was the 46th year in a row he has come to the Chesterton Cemetery, where the Legion holds its annual Memorial Day event.
American Legion Commander Daryl Peterson pointed out how Pratt was faithfully there again to the 100 people who gathered around the flagpole Monday morning under brilliant sunny, blue skies.
Pratt deflects the attention away from himself. The Chesterton native served in the Army during the 1950s and says he was 'too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam.'
Among the gravestones that stretch out at Chesterton Cemetery are those who served in or were casualties of American wars past.
Allan Alliss recently moved from Chesterton to Leesburg, Fla. Since he was in town, Alliss put on his Vietnam Veteran hat and made his way over to the Chesterton Cemetery.
'To honor those who served, who gave everything there was to give,' Alliss said in explaining why he was compelled to come.
Alliss served with the Marine Corps in Vietnam from 1966 to 1968. He worked in the office in the support of an air unit.
As he stood in Chesterton Cemetery, Alliss thought of the one pilot from his unit who didn't return home.
'Not only on days like today, but throughout my life I've thought about him,' Alliss said.
Not far from where Alliss stood, George Kelchak, 98, of Chesterton was there in a wheelchair.
Kelchak wore a hat for the 88th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army with whom he proudly served in Yugoslavia during World War II.
'What brings me out is to celebrate Memorial Day. I look forward to it every year,' Kelchak said.
Tony Reales, 64, had his homemade walking stick with him when he attended the Memorial Day ceremony at St. Patrick's Cemetery, which immediately preceded the event at the Chesterton Cemetery. On his walking stick are stones shaped as hearts, representing his wife and two daughters who are deceased.
Reales was in the U.S. Navy for 8 years and was on a ship in the Indian Ocean during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.
'Memorial Day is very meaningful to me because it's honoring those who literally gave all for our freedom,' Reales said.
Reales said he instructs people not to wish him a happy Memorial Day. 'It's not a celebration. It's honoring those who gave all.'
Chesterton High School history teacher Bob DeRuntz, the keynote speaker, extemporaneously delivered an eloquent meditation on the importance of Memorial Day.
DeRuntz started with Abraham Lincoln and the dilemma he faced in deciding what to say with the Gettysburg Address in 1863.
'There was nothing he could say. What could he possibly say that could equal the sacrifice that those men had made?' DeRuntz said.
Lincoln flipped the script, in that he made the speech about how the people present, and in the nation, needed to dedicate themselves to finishing the war.
U.S. General John Logan in 1868 was the one who decreed that there would be Decoration Day – which became Memorial Day – to honor the war dead.
'We meet here still to this day, on this day to remember the sacrifice made for those who have given their lives in defense of our nation,' DeRuntz said.
DeRuntz then described the cemetery in Normandy, France, where thousands of American soldiers lost their lives during the D-Day invasion that turned the tide in the European Theater of World War II.
Then, DeRuntz painted a word picture of the scene at Arlington Cemetery, where he told of how the honor guard is constantly on duty at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The president of the United States on occasion has advised the honor guard during hurricanes and blizzards, the Unknown Soldier honor guard duty could be suspended.
'On each and every occasion, they (the honor guard) respond, with all due respect Mr. President, we will not stand down,' DeRuntz said.
'How we choose to honor those who have given their last full measure of devotion, in devotion to our nation, it matters.'
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A War Hero, Wounded Pride, and a Killing to Shame Us All
Four years after unsung war hero Abdul Rahman Waziri flew out of Kabul Airport to start a new life in America, his remains returned there in a coffin. The 31-year-old was shot to death by a Texas gunman on April 27 in a parking lot dispute. Waziri was unarmed, and his killer has so far escaped arrest by claiming self-defense. As Waziri was buried in an elegantly simple, stone-lined grave in the Barmal District of Paktika Province, his grief-stricken wife was 8,000 miles away in Houston with their two daughters, aged 4 years, and 9 months. The older girl was repeatedly asking a question that her family did not want to answer. 'Where is my dad?' When Waziri fled Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban had targeted him for torture and execution as a member of the Afghan National Mine Reduction Group (NMRG). This elite, highly trained unit cleared improvised explosive devices (IEDs) ahead of American Green Berets, whose missions from 2019 on were conducted entirely at night. The NMRG had demonstrated year after year, without Hurt Locker-style bomb suits, that the bravest acts are sometimes performed on hands and knees. Waziri had been on Team 7 and had disabled two dozen bombs before he became an instructor training NMRG replacements for those who died. His older brother, Abdullah Khan, was on Team 8 and disabled 40 bombs. Khan's 12-man unit lost three members. 'The hazards they undertook were immense,' former Green Beret Thomas Kasza told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last year. 'From 2015 onwards, 22 Green Berets died, compared to 47 NMRG members. We owe them and their families a debt.' During the chaos of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, Waziri took the time to establish safe houses for his comrades before he escaped to America. He had communicated while still in Taliban territory via encrypted messaging apps with Shireen Connor, a U.S.-based volunteer with an Afghan evacuation team. 'I really have tried to underscore the panic and level of danger that was present at the time,' she told the Daily Beast. 'He was a high-value Taliban target, and despite that, was still putting his life at risk to set up safe houses for other people to try and wait for potential evacuation.' She added, 'That really gave me a sense of who he was; someone who's willing to step forward and keep doing the right thing for other people, people he doesn't even know. A good person down to his core.' After arriving in America, Waziri went to work for a Houston security company. He settled into an apartment complex at 3400 Ocee Street with his wife, Malalai, and their two daughters. He was returning from the gym in his white Toyota Camry shortly after 9 p.m. on April 27 when he pulled over outside the apartment complex's mailboxes. He put on his hazard lights, apparently to signal that he was just pausing there and would proceed to a parking spot closer to his apartment after he collected his mail. He never got the chance. Surveillance footage shows that a black Kia pulled up moments later. But a carport roof obscured from the camera much of what followed in the minutes before a Houston police dispatcher put out a call for that address. 'Person shot is a male, gray shorts, gray shirt,' the dispatcher said. 'Caller is a male, black, striped shirt, blue pants. Gun is in his pocket.' The caller was the shooter. 'It's about a male trying to take over this parking spot, and he shot him,' the dispatcher added. Officers arrived moments later, where they saw the man in gray shorts and a gray shirt lying in the parking lot with gunshot wounds to his head, chest, and leg. 'This guy isn't moving or breathing,' a cop reported over the radio. An ambulance responded and rushed the unconscious Waziri to Ben Taub General Hospital. There, Abdullah Khan Waziri was pronounced dead. Back at the scene of the shooting, the caller surrendered his gun to the police. 'We've got one male detained,' a cop reported on the radio. 'Suspect's on scene. He says it's self-defense.' A sergeant called over the air for the usual ritual to begin: 'Do me a favor and start putting up yellow tape.' A cop responded, 'Yeah, this is going to be a homicide most likely.' In further keeping with standard procedure, the deceased's family was notified. Word reached 36-year-old Khan in Florida, where he had settled with another brother, Gul Shabar Gul, 44. Gul had served as an interpreter with the Americans. Khan and Gul flew together to Houston and arrived at the apartment complex the following morning. They saw Waziri's blood where he had fallen. Khan asked several residents if they had seen what happened. They seemed fearful and did not respond. 'I asked them to give me a bucket,' Khan recalled. Khan poured out bucketful after bucketful of water and borrowed a brush. He crouched down just like he and Waziri often had while finding and disabling IEDs with NMRG. He set to scrubbing away what remained of his younger brother's blood. 'It was, like, in between the cracks,' he told the Daily Beast. Khan became aware of a man who was casually walking back and forth nearby, carrying clothes and other belongings from an apartment complex to a car in the lot. A resident told Khan that this was the man who killed Waziri. The police had briefly handcuffed him when they responded to the scene of the shooting, but had quickly released him. He claimed he had acted in self-defense. The 'stand your ground law' in Texas allows private citizens to use deadly force to defend their person or property, and there is no duty to retreat. He now remained at liberty. 'He was normal, walking in front of me,' Khan recalled. 'He was not feeling like, 'I did this with his brother, I should not show my face.'' A retired Green Beret who learned of this disrespectful indifference and knew Khan's physical capabilities as a highly trained special forces operator marveled at his restraint. Khan simply finished scrubbing and went with Gul to the rental office. There, the brothers viewed the surveillance video from the time of the shooting. They saw Waziri's Toyota and then the gunman's Kia arrive and largely disappear from view. At one point, Waziri and a Black male from the Kia can be seen above the upper edge of the obscuring carport roof, speaking to each other and pointing. At another point, the other man's feet appear below the lower edge of the roof, moving toward the Kia and then quickly back toward Waziri and the Camry. What appears to be the man from the Kia then strides into full view in a striped shirt and blue shorts, almost be-bopping, as if he had nary a care. The detectives in charge of the case did not speak to the brothers until the day after they arrived. They declined to identify the gunman. They would only say that the case was under continuing investigation and any charging decisions would be made by the Harris County district attorney. The D.A.'s office would only say the investigation was ongoing. But while the police officer who responded to the shooting could be heard on the radio following the usual routine, there is some question about the detectives who then took the case. A spokesman for the Houston police department says the detectives have been conducting a thorough investigation from the very start. But a lawyer for Waziri's family says that he discovered a spent 9-mm Hornady Luger shell casing in the vicinity of the Camry that almost certainly should have been taken into evidence. The lawyer, Omar Khawaja, also says the detectives failed to conduct a full canvass for witnesses with an interpreter who could allow them to communicate with the numerous Afghans in the complex who do not speak English. Five days after the shooting, Khawaja brought a woman to the police who said she had witnessed the entire incident from the balcony of her second-floor apartment. Khawaja says she told them that after Waziri continued on toward the mailboxes, the other man began kicking the Camry. Waziri had turned back before he could get his mail, and there had been a verbal dispute that turned physical. As the woman told it, Waziri had quickly subdued the man without inflicting serious injury to anything but, perhaps, his pride. The man had gone to his car and gotten a gun, loading it as he headed back toward Waziri. The witness said Waziri raised his hands to signal 'don't shoot.' The man allegedly shot him three times and then walked off with an improbable bounce in his step. That a soldier such as Waziri would meet such an end was particularly heart-wrenching for Green Berets who served with him in Afghanistan. Retired Master Sgt. Ben Hoffman remembered that when he met Waziri, he had first been struck by the size of the 6-foot-4-inch, 230-plus-pound Afghan. Hoffman then came to know Wazari as a 'gentle giant' who, at his core, embraced the U.S. Army Special Forces motto De Oppresso Liber (To Free the Oppressed). 'It's not about conquering the enemy; it's about freeing people that are being conquered by the enemy,' Hoffman said, 'And he was all about De Oppresso Liber. He saw his own crew, men and the kids and the women being persecuted by the Taliban, and he wanted to see them free, which is why he was willing to go and crawl on his hands and knees to clear IEDs for us.' Hoffman went on, 'Crawling on hands and knees at night under night vision goggles, digging up IEDs that could kill American special forces and other Afghans. I definitely saw him on multiple occasions doing stuff like that. 'And then you get into contact with the enemy, and see him rear up and return fire, and then, come back to us, and we're fighting side by side.' He added, 'It's a story of a teammate that I definitely would have gone side by side with at the gates of hell.' Hoffman says he and Waziri shared a mindset. 'Which is, we are strong, we are trained, we are absolutely capable of destroying the enemy,' he said. 'But at the same time, we are calm, and we're able to see a situation and draw back and escalate or deescalate as needed.' That was Waziri. 'He was all about bringing peace to a situation, if he could.' In the meantime, Khan and Gul brought their brother's widow and children to Florida. 'My brother's wife, she's like, 'My husband was not a person to hurt anybody. My husband was always trying to save other people's lives,'' Khan told the Daily Beast. 'She was talking the whole night and day about that, and now she's panicking and doesn't know where she is. But then we spray water on her face… and then, she gets better.' The 9-month-old is too young to even remember her father, but the 4-year-old keeps asking for him. 'She's always asking, 'Where is he? When is he coming?'' Khan told the Daily Beast at the start of last week. 'And I'm like, 'He's in work. He's coming. He's doing (his) job right now.'' The family decided to hold off telling the girl the truth, partly because that would include telling her that, so far, nothing has happened to the man who shot her father. She had become only more insistent on Wednesday. 'She said, 'Tell my father to take me back to Texas,'' he reported. 'And I'm like, 'OK.'' He told the Daily Beast that he felt the time was nearing when he would have to tell her the truth. 'I will just say, 'He's not coming to you anymore, he is not with us anymore,'' Khan said. 'Maybe that's all I can say to her.' But over breakfast on Friday morning, the girl's mother told Khan to hold off. 'She said, 'No, just keep it like this, don't tell her,'' Khan told the Daily Beast. 'I said, 'One day, she needs to know.' [The wife] said, 'Yeah, but we can say, like, 'He's here, he's there.'' And maybe she forgets later on. And then I'm like, 'OK, whatever you say.'' Khan called the police and was told he could leave a message, as he had been instructed to do on at least five other occasions. He has yet to receive a call back. 'I've been calling so many times, and nobody responded, and my message is, 'I want to know where is the investigation and what's going on?'' Khan reported. 'So they said, 'Okay, she will call you back. I'm gonna take a note and leave it on her desk with your phone number.'' A spokesman for the district attorney was saying, 'We are still awaiting investigation results before making a decision.' Khawaja told the Daily Beast that he had heard that the district attorney will turn the matter over to the grand jury and let it decide whether the gunman should be charged. He said that the witness from the second-floor balcony had become so frightened after the gunman remained at liberty despite her account that she had left the country. But the police have her statement, and when Khawaja spoke to her, she told him she would still be willing to testify. 'I don't know what the mechanics of that look like in terms of getting her back over here,' he said. Khawaja added that there was supposedly a second witness who had been smoking a cigarette nearby at the time of the shooting, but he had apparently not come forward. He had likely also seen the police handcuff and immediately release the gunman. In the weeks since the shooting, Hoffman and other Green Berets have issued calls for justice. Reports of the shooting appeared in various news outlets, including local TV stations, the Daily Mail, People, the New York Post, and then in greater detail by NBC News. Shireen Connor wrote an impassioned letter to Houston Mayor John Whitmire describing Waziri's selfless courage. 'Always helping other people in the face of significant personal peril,' she wrote. 'How do you define a human being like this?' Whatever the authorities do or do not do, the 4-year-old daughter of that magnificent human will never see her daddy again.
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Ancy Morse, who died May 3, relied on resilence, humility to carve a ground-breaking legal career
May 31—ROCHESTER — In the early stages of Ancy Morse's legal career, people had a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept of a woman attorney. On her first job, Morse walked into a conference room to meet with a client, who thought she was there to bring him coffee. When Morse explained to the elderly man that she was his attorney, the man was incredulous. "By God, now I've seen everything!" he said. Disbelief was the price Morse paid in forging a legal career that had few antecedents. In the early 1960s, Morse became the first female attorney to practice law in Olmsted County. In 1983, she became the first female district judge outside the Twin Cities area when she was appointed by then-Gov. Rudy Perpich. Morse died May 3, 2025, at the Homestead Senior Living Facility in Rochester after a battle with cancer, according to her obituary. During her 16-year tenure as judge, Morse presided over thousands of cases involving child custody battles, divorces, sex abuse cases and civil disputes. But the case with which she became inextricably linked was the 1989 trial involving David Brom, a 16-year-old Lourdes High School student who killed his parents, a younger brother and sister with an ax while they slept in their rural Rochester home. Morse sentenced the teen to three consecutive life prison terms, acknowledging to a packed courtroom the emotional agony and difficulty in overseeing such a fraught case. Calling the case "inexplicable and unfathomable," Morse struck an undercurrent of sympathy in her ruling, calling Brom a "seriously mentally ill boy, driven to despair by a pathetically sick and depressed mind." She felt the law had failed to keep pace with advances in psychiatry and later joined the defense in vainly seeking changes to the state standard governing mental illness defenses. In charting her way in a male-dominated field, Morse had to get used to the many double-takes she triggered in people who had never seen a woman attorney before. In law school at the University of Minnesota, Morse was one of six women, according to a July 16, 1973, Rochester Post Bulletin article. Her classes were populated with returning veterans from World War II on the GI bill. It could be a tough crowd. It was made all the more formidable and intimidating when the professor closed the door at the start of class and declared the day "Ladies Day," meaning only women would be allowed to answer questions "She told me there was never time for pettiness, just perseverance," said her son Mark Morse said. When she was admitted to the bar, it was Morse and 166 men who took the oath. A woman attorney just didn't compute for many at the time. Early in her career, Morse represented a woman in a divorce proceeding, but the judge mistook Morse as the woman seeking the divorce. When trying to serve legal papers on a party in the jail, the guards suspected her of being a girlfriend of one of the inmates and called her office to check, according to the book "Taking The Lead: Rochester Women in Public Policy," which devotes a chapter on Morse. Morse's dream of practicing law had taken root as a young girl growing up in International Falls. Her grandfather, Aad Tone, had been a pioneer lawyer in Koochiching County whom she would accompany on trips to the courthouse. Being raised in a small town, Morse was taught to fish and hunt. In school, she had free reign to participate in a wide variety of activities and pursuits. "...and a woman will lead them," yearbook staff from International Falls High School prophetically inscribed next to her name. Her mother, Esther Olson Tone, had aspired to be a lawyer, but those dreams were dashed when Esther's Scandinavian parents' savings were looted by a banker. So those ambitions were transferred to Morse. "Maybe, I just got tired of people saying, 'You'll never do it,'" Morse told one reporter. A profoundly formative chapter in her life was her selection as one of four senior Girl Scouts to represent the U.S. at an international conference. Morse joined the Girl Scouts in the third grade and remained active for decades. The conference she attended was held in Switzerland and changed her life. She no longer felt like she was from a small town. She felt that she belonged anywhere. "It emboldened her. It gave her a community of women to support and reassure and advocate for," said a daughter, Kelly Nowicki. As she pursued her legal education, Morse often found support in a small network of men, including her uncles and her future husband, Bob Morse. Both had attended grade school together. Bob Morse would stay after class to wash down the blackboards. But beyond earning some brownie points, Bob hoped to catch the eye of the teacher's blonde-haired daughter, Ancy. Bob attended the University of Minnesota along with Ancy, becoming a psychiatrist at Mayo Clinic. After working as a lawyer for many years, Morse was encouraged by her legal peers to apply for a judge vacancy. Mark Morse said his mom didn't expect to get the appointment, but thought it would be an opportunity to let Olmsted County know that "there is a female attorney in town." To her surprise, Perpich picked her. "She was often encouraged by others to do things that she didn't necessarily think she was ready for — or good enough for," Mark Morse said. "She was very humble that way." A lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan, Morse and her family were season ticket holders for many years. A favorite story Mark Morse likes to tell is how Mark and his wife attended a Vikings game and were seated behind his mom and dad. Morse didn't like the arrangement and proceeded to convince the 30 or so other attendees in her section to scoot two seats over, including two people at the end of the row to move back one row, so Mark and his wife could sit down next to her. "She was very confident in what she felt needed to happen and very capable of making it happen," Mark Morse said. Mark Morse said he never saw his mom betray any umbrage or resentment at the slights she encountered in her legal career. As she advanced in her career, she became a role model and support to other women professionals. "You hear a lot of people demand respect. She never did," Mark Morse said at her funeral. "Her approach was the Nike of women's rights; she just did it. And that humility, tied with performance, was an amazing message to others."
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Honoring service with warmth: Austin veterans presented with Quilts of Valor
May 31—By Jed Nelson Memorial Day is a day of remembering and honoring those who have passed away serving our country. It is a day where communities come together to remember those men and women that made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. It is also a day where we show respect, where respect is due. A few weeks ago, a group of quilters from First Congregational Church of Austin made and presented four Quilts of Valor to the Donovan family. The group saw this as a perfect opportunity to honor a local military family as Memorial Day approached. Tim Donovan, of Austin, served in the United States Air Force, while all three of his sons followed suit in serving our country. Tim Donovan Jr served in both the United States Navy and National Guard, while twin sons Phil and Dan Donovan both served in the United States Marine Corps. The Quilts of Valor are made by those with a passion for quilting and a heart for those who have served our country. "We give quilts to veterans to honor them for their service," group member Marlene Hannam said. "Wrapping the veterans in their quilt, it is a hug from us." The group at First Congregational is a part of the Quilts of Valor Foundation, which works to honor any person who has served in a branch of the United States military. The group in Austin has been active for 15 years and in that time has presented numerous quilts to service members. "Our group in Austin started 15 years ago when I retired," member Mari Jo Stanek said. "We've gone on to make at least five hundred quilts for Veterans." The lady's group at First Congregational consists of 12 to 15 members. Each member works to craft a quilt made with love, care, and gratitude that flows from their hearts, into their hands, then finds home within the quilt. "It's really a great thing," Hannam said. "Some vets came home to very little, so awarding them with these quilts is such an honor." Hannam, Stanek, and other group members look to local Legions and high schools holding class reunions when finding groups of veterans to present quilts to. Once the quilt members are made aware of veterans to honor, the quilters get to work, then make the trip to present the Quilts of Valor to the veterans, often in front of their family, friends, or community members that get to witness this presentation of respect and honor. "The happiness on their faces as we wrap the quilts around them is just amazing to see," Hannam added. Regarding the Donovan's, the quilters did not have to worry about presenting in front of an audience. The presentation was done at home in the Donovan's backyard, where they were presented with their very own red, white, and blue Quilts of Valor. Seeing as the Donovan presentation was in their backyard, that did not mean it was any less special to them or the quilters of First Congregational. The presentation did not forgo any of its standard rituals — that being a speech on the importance and history of the Quilts of Valor and a few words on what it means to be a veteran. "It's really neat when a family has a father and three sons that have all served," Hannam said. "They were quite happy with the quilts." The group also makes it a priority to branch out into neighboring communities to honor their veterans. Each year members of the group travel to LeRoy for Pheasants Forever, a nonprofit conservation organization that hosts a DAV (Disabled American Veterans) hunt which started in 2019. "These veterans go out there and hunt pheasants," Hannam said. "Then we present them with their quilts, and they are simply honored." The quilters of First Congregational meet every Wednesday to talk about patterns, family, and friends. "Everybody has their own material," Hannam said. "Usually, we sew at home, but some ladies sew at the church." But no matter where the members sew, the act of creating a quilt that will bring happiness to a veteran will always bring them together. During the creation process, the ladies can't help but discuss how grateful they are that they get to honor local veterans through their quilts. Once the quilts are presented, the group makes it known that each veteran is welcomed as a member to their quilting family. "It's just beautiful that we get to do this," Hannam added. "We all find it to be such an honor."
