In honor of Veterans’ Day on Wednesday, Nov. 11, we talked with three local veterans who served their country in four different wars: World War II, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Col. John Ridge, 97th Coastal Artillery, U.S. Army; 67th Field Artillery, National Guard

ASHLEY MEDLEY | Voice-Tribune John Ridge, 95, vividly remembers being at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

John Ridge and two of his buddies were looking forward to a day off from duty at Fort Kamehameha at the entrance to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. The three men had planned to visit the north end of the Hawaiian island.

“We went to Mass at this church at a Portuguese settlement near post,” said Ridge, 95. “We came out and heard firing at Fort Wheeler, 20 miles to the north. I turned to them and said ‘The Navy or Army must be on maneuvers.’ ”

It was at that moment a Japanese plane flew overhead and dropped a bomb.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget what that bomb looked like coming out of that plane,” Ridge said.

Ridge and his buddies took cover, then headed back to base to see what they could do.

“The first sergeant gave me a Browning rifle and told me to shoot,” Ridge said. “The planes were at tree-top level. I shot, but I don’t know if I hit anything.”

Later that night, fear of another attack led American soldiers to shoot down two American B-17 planes, Ridge said.

“It was scary that night. If one person fired (his gun), everyone started firing,” he said. “We spent the next month digging in, sleeping underground (in anticipation of another attack).”

Ridge left Hawaii in May of 1942 for North Africa. When the African campaign ended, he was sent to Italy, where he fought in the Battle of Monte Cassino.

“Italy is a much forgotten part of the war. I landed on the beach at Anzio,” Ridge said. “I was the adjutant of my battalion and had to lead them to the first firing post. It was the middle of the night. I’ll never remember how I found the way.”

The Battle of Monte Cassino was a series of four battles, “but at the time, I didn’t know there was more than one,” Ridge said.
Ridge spent seven years in the Army and 22 years in the National Guard. He retired from the National Guard as a colonel.

After his service overseas, he returned to Louisville, got married and worked as a real estate appraiser and in commercial lending. He worked with many clients until he was 90.

Ridge is still extremely active despite having macular degeneration, which has impaired his eyesight. He works out six days a week, attends a weekly discussion group at the Louisville Boat Club, meets with his old Army artillery group once a month and attends various other groups and luncheons.

Ridge was inducted into the duPont Manual High School Hall of Fame in 2006.

Staff Sgt. Mike Shallenberger, 1st Infantry Division, U.S. Army

COURTESY Mike Shallenberger and his wife, Suzette.

MikeShallenberger was a “20-year-old kid” when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1968.

“It was scary,” said Shallenberger, now 61. “Here I was, 20 years old and second in command of 40 people.”

Shallenberger spent almost 11 months in Vietnam as part of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, famously known as “The Big Red One.”

The division was responsible for patrols, ambushes and other combat operations.

“You never knew what you’d find (in combat),” Shallenberger said. “There would be a couple boring days, then a couple of exciting days, then a couple more boring days.”

Shallenberger spent two years in the Army before returning to Louisville, going to school then serving as a police officer for 35 years.

He retired from the police department two years ago with the rank of lieutenant.

“I made some really good friends (in the Army),” he said. “People I’m still in contact with today.”

Shallenberger has visited St. Xavier High School every year for the past 15 years to speak to students about his war experiences.

“They glamorize it on TV,” he said. “In the jungle, you’re always tired, you’re always hungry and thirsty and you’re always dirty. People think they know what it was like, but unless you were there, you don’t know.

“I was lucky. I had some really great people around me,” he said.

Capt. Bill Chomos, 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, U.S. Army

courtesy Capt. Bill Chomos, second from left, who is stationed at Fort Knox, has been deployed to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once.

Capt. Bill Chomos, 37, has been deployed five times in his 17 years in the U.S. Army. He’s been deployed twice to Egypt (1994, 1996), once to Afghanistan (2002) and twice to Iraq (2003-2004, 2008).

He is currently stationed at Fort Knox, Ky.

“My first deployment (to  Afghanistan) I was a platoon leader for a maintenance unit,” Chomos said. “On my second (to Iraq) I was on a transition team that trained Iraqi military (personnel) in logistics.”

His later deployments were also spent as a platoon leader for a unit that performed maintenance on vehicles, weapons and electronic devices.

Telling small children that daddy is going away is never easy, but Chomos and his wife, Christine, came up with a gentle way to tell their two children, ages 5 and 7.

“We cased it into ‘I am going to help kids over there because they don’t have what we have over here,’ ” he said.

Regular letters, e-mails and phone calls to his family kept Chomos’ morale up while he was deployed.

Watching football and basketball games on Armed Forces Television brought a little bit of home to the Middle East as well.

“I don’t know if I’ll be deployed again,” he said. “I’ve got three more years left in the Army. There’s always a possibility.”

Staff writer Ashley Medley will profile more local veterans on her Public Safety blog at voice-tribune.com starting next week.