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SALUTE TO VETERANS
THE NORTH PLATTE TELEGRAPH
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2020
FAMILY from Page D2
DAKOTA from Page D3
ly as 4 a.m. or end as late as midnight depending on what shift he worked. Perlinger said as he was among troops moved from basic training in Denver to advanced training in North Carolina; the two options for jobs were ei- ther a clerk or a cook. Those cadets who had experience with typewrit- ers in high school ended up as clerks. Perlinger grew up work- ing on his parents’ farm in Paxton and never went to high school. He enjoyed his time as a cook but ad- mitted he didn’t really use his culinary skills much after his time in the Army. “My wife is a better cook,” Perlinger said of Maxine, whom he has been married to since 1950. Perlinger returned to Nebraska after his mili- tary service and worked on a handful of farms, in- cluding his parents’.
“I could pick 50 bushels of corn in half a day, come in and unload it, eat my dinner and then go back out,” Perlinger said. “We are talking about dry land, but I would pick 50 bushels twice a day.” Eventually he took a friend’s suggestion to get a job with the Nebraska Public Power District. He started as a truck driv- er hauling cement to work sites and spent the next 30 years in various capacities. He added his time in the military matured him physically and mentally. “I really learned how to take orders (in the Army)” Perlinger said. “You were told to do something and it that was it. That is what you did. “I just had the thought of ‘I am going to do the best I can here.’ I just wanted to do my part to help be- cause we were fighting this war.”
They starting going out and Ruth took him to meet her parents. “Her dad told her to bring me down to the farm, so I went to the farm to meet her par- ents,” Fleck said. “Guess what the first thing he had me do- ing — milking cows. He put me right to work.” Fleck asked Ruth to marry him and they were married in Kansas City. From there, Fleck con- tinued to work for the FAA, earning promotions along the way until he eventually ended up in North Platte. Steve and Ruth had six chil- dren together. She died in 2013 on their anniversary. Their children are Linda Toll, Mick Fleck, Duane Fleck, Cindy Huntsman, Marsha Sedlacek and Madonna Madsen. His daughter Cindy said there are a “flock of Flecks.” Steve has 21 grandchildren, 51 great-grandchildren and sev- en great-great-grandchildren.
— the war is over.’ Well, that was really a relief for us,” Perlinger said. Perlinger said the cadets were given a 10-day break and initially expected to then be deployed overseas as part of the American troop support for the occu- pation of Japan at the end of the war. “We all got back and were told, ‘The orders have changed. You are not going overseas.’” Perlinger said. “I was looking for- ward to going overseas and seeing some of the oth- er countries. I never got the chance to do it.” Perlinger spent the rest of his roughly year-and- a-half military career in Kentucky. He was part of a crew that fed 250 indi- viduals three times a day. His day could begin as ear-
moved to Kansas City because he didn’t want to go back and work on the farm. “I worked for the Ford Motor Company in Kansas City,” Fleck said. “I looked in the paper and saw a job opening for a radio operator. I applied for the job and the guy that hired me was a pro- fessor at Rockhurst College in Kansas City. “He said, ‘We’ve been wait- ing for you.’” That was when Fleck started his long career with the Federal Aviation Administration. “I met my wife, Ruth, in Kansas City when she was working in a cafeteria,” Fleck said. “She was sitting up there in a chair and I was sitting with another girl. I looked over at her and went over and sat down with her. I was a flirt.”
This Veterans Day, we’d like to thank you for your service and dedication to our country.
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