In 1961, Jerry Smith was washing windows at a JCPenney on First Street in Dixon when he thought he caught a lucky break: He’d found a job at a shoe store down the road that would pay him $60 a week.

Raised mostly by his grandmother, he and his brother grew up in rural Lee County, at one point on a farm near Ashton with their mother. College wasn’t really in the picture.

But fate – at that time in the hands of his JCPenney manager, Wayne Herschberger – had something else in mind.

“He did one of these,” Smith, now 82, said, miming grabbing someone by the collar. “He said, ‘Jerry Smith, you are going to go to DeKalb College with me.’ And he drove me to NIU.”

So Smith went up to DeKalb and took some tests in April 1961. By August he was settled into Neptune West dormitory hall on Northern Illinois University campus.

“There are certain people in our lives that are so special,” Smith said. “And this manager ... is one that I owe such a great gratitude. Because he was the one who said ‘You’re going to college.’”

In college came a radio gig at DeKalb-based WLBK radio station. Next followed a brief teaching post in nearby Maple Park, a stint in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, a career in media and newspaper printing where he met his wife, Ging Palma Smith, a family, and a retirement where he couldn’t get service out of his bones.

He volunteered on various businesses and community service-oriented boards, served a term as DeKalb mayor, elected in 2017, and helped start a veteran-centered philanthropy fund with the DeKalb County Community Foundation and friend and fellow veteran Michael Embrey.

Service stories

In August, Smith and Sycamore resident Ed Kuhn, 80, also a Vietnam War-era U.S. Army veteran, participated in Honor Flight Chicago, traveling to Washington D.C. for a whirlwind daylong tour and to be recognized for their service. In 2024, veteran John Toles, 88, also of Sycamore, did his own Honor Flight Chicago tour.

The three didn’t know each other in the service, but they shared coffee and memories recently in an interview with Shaw Local News Network during a chilly October morning at the Lincoln Inn at Faranda’s in DeKalb.

Smith and Kuhn were among four Korean War and 106 Vietnam War veterans who did the Honor Flight tour Aug. 20, according to the organization.

It was a long way since washing windows.

After graduating with an NIU journalism degree in 1966, Smith took up a post at Kaneland High School teaching English and journalism. But halfway through the first school year, he was drafted into the Army. He served from 1967 to 1969.

The superintendent at the time wrote a letter to the draft board asking if Smith could finish his teaching post. The board said yes. But not 10 days after classes ended in May 1967, Smith found himself at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for basic training.

Smith worked for five months as an AV specialist at Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia. Then he was deployed to Wurzburg, Germany, assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division where he did mostly public information work and wrote scripts for the American Forces Network radio broadcasts.

“One of the duties that I had in Germany was to take a tape recorder and go out and interview folks in the training for what we called ‘Hometown Interviews,’” Smith said.

He said trainees would sometimes say they were bored of training, and wanted to go to Vietnam for “the real thing.”

“I’ve often thought, I wonder what the mindset was of these guys?” Smith said.

“Well, that’s youth,” Ed Kuhn said.

Like Smith, Kuhn was drafted. He served from 1965 to 1967.

“I waited to get drafted,” Kuhn said. “I figured, I’ll serve my two years, I’ve got enough to do with, I don’t need to be a soldier all my life so I’ll do my duty.”

By the time Smith was deployed, Kuhn was about two years into his service. Kuhn was working as a TV repairman when he got his orders in 1965. He assumed he’d be in the Signal Corps, given his profession.

But fate had different plans for Kuhn, too.

“Pretty soon somebody came, ‘Hey Kuhn, you’re going to be a medic.’ And I said, ‘Oh, I’ve got to look at this,’” Kuhn said. “So I was assigned to the medical corps.”

Did he have any medical experience? “Absolutely not,” Kuhn said, laughing.

Kuhn worked as a medic in a military base eye clinic for the Army 9th Division forming at Fort Riley, Kansas, to ship soldiers off to Vietnam. He’d help set men up with prescription glasses and gas mask lenses they’d need in the field.

“We would take a client in, get them seated and the doctor would do the test and give us the prescription,” Kuhn said. “Then they would come out and we’d fit the glasses, order a set of glasses and a set of gas mask lenses. It was a lens with a wire frame, spring-loaded, and you would put them in the gas mask. They’d snap in.”

Some 60 years later, the three men agreed one reason the Honor Flight was so meaningful was the difference in public reaction. On their flights, they were welcomed by grateful crowds and other supporters in ways they hadn’t experienced in the 1960s.

John Toles, who did his flight in 2024, deployed to Korea during the Vietnam War from 1959 to 1962. He worked in the Army Security Agency. Born in Colorado, he’s lived in Sycamore almost his whole life.

“When I came back from Korea, people were treated very poorly,” Toles said. “So it felt so good to be recognized with the Honor guardsmen. I enjoyed that.”

Toles’ flight buddy? His son.

The service didn’t stop for Toles, either. He’s an active member of the Sycamore Lions Club. That morning, he left the interview early to deliver food for Meals on Wheels.

Kuhn also was joined on his Honor flight by his son, Phil.

“Ed and I talked about how fortunate we were to be given assignments that were not in battle zones like so many of our comrades who went to Vietnam,” Smith said.

The pair connected during the Honor Flight trip. Another welcomed aspect of the Honor Flight? A chance to build camaraderie among fellow veterans.

From DeKalb to D.C. and back

It started with a 2 a.m. pick up, Smith said.

They arrived to Chicago Midway International Airport about 4 a.m., with a 7 a.m. flight departure. Each participating veteran was given an escort, sent off and then welcomed back – about 14 hours later – with much pomp and circumstance.

Schoolchildren sent Thank You cards. Loved ones sent handwritten notes. They mingled with fellow servicemembers, young and old. They were greeted with water cannon salutes, military muster calls and music. People thanked them for their service.

“It was emphasized to us that the two key words we heard all day was ‘Welcome home, welcome back,” Smith said. “Because so many of the Vietnam vets ... were not welcomed back.”

When the group arrived in D.C., they visited monuments and enjoyed sightseeing to pay their respects. Some highlights included visits to the U.S. Marine Corps. War Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, the World War II Memorial, driving by Arlington National Cemetery and a trip to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

On the return flight to Chicago about 5:45 p.m. began “what is considered by many the highlight of the trip,” Smith said: Mail call.

Among the keepsakes Smith received that day was a handmade card from a child that read, “Dear veteran, you changed the world.”

The plane landed in Chicago about 7 p.m., but the group didn’t disperse until 9 p.m. due to, among other things, the fanfare upon arrival. By the time Smith returned to home about 11 p.m., he was so tired he told his wife he’d tell her about the trip in the morning.

The three veterans said they wanted to share their story in part to encourage others in DeKalb County to sign up for Honor Flight Chicago.

They said the waiting list is worth it for a chance to commemorate a meaningful, moving and often heavy time in their lives, swap stories with veterans and share in a common moment of pride in country.

“I have been so blessed,” Smith said. “As a poor kid from Dixon with two pairs of pants, no shirt, had to go to work right away in the kitchen at Northern Illinois. I mean, to live the life and have the experiences in my life, just truly blessed.”

Kuhn agreed. As a Lions Club member himself, he was already planning the rest of his day, helping judge pumpkins in the display contest for this year’s Sycamore Pumpkin Festival.

“There’s a sign on the wall that ‘Gratitude is what makes you have enough,’” Kuhn said. “But in fact, what we have is so much. It’s amazing.”