More than 100 people with military service during wartime and peace gathered at the Villa Chanticleer Annex the morning of Nov. 11, Veterans Day. It was the 17th annual Veterans Day breakfast, sponsored by the American Legion Sotoyome Post 111, with free coffee, food and inspiration for everyone. These were the men and women one sees around Healdsburg working in local businesses, shopping at the markets, helping out with civic events and, in general and in private, making Healdsburg a better place.
As introduced by Manual Ramos, this year’s president of the Rotary Club of Healdsburg Sunrise, there were two generations of guests to be introduced, one whose involvement with a veteran dated back to Pearl Harbor, the other a former Iraq war pilot, now flying for United. Two very different generations of Americans whose lives were shaped by service.
Ramos asked the vets in the room to stand up when their service was called—a fair number of Army and Navy vets, several former Marines and a few U.S. Air Force veterans obliged. “U.S. Space Force?” Roberts asked hopefully, but no one stood up.
“I guess they’re all too young to be veterans yet,” someone said.
The guest of honor, Alice Beck Darrow, met her husband in the hospital in Honolulu when he was a patient with a machine gun bullet lodged in the lining of his heart. Her story was told by Chris Smith, the former Press Democrat columnist, who first encountered the Darrows in 1991, shortly before Dean Darrow died. He’s written about them several times, most recently in the Ukiah Daily Journal.
Dean Darrow was blown off the deck of the USS West Virginia battleship berthed at Pearl Harbor, and aside from an evident shrapnel wound in his back appeared OK. After observation and tests he returned to active duty. But something wasn’t right. He went back to the hospital, and a second X-ray showed a 7.7mm machine gun bullet lodged in the lining of his heart.
On his way into the operating room, young Dean called out to his favorite nurse, Miss Becky (from her last name at the time) that they should go “out on the town” when he got over the surgery. Of course she agreed, not necessarily expecting he’d be around to take her up on the offer.
The surgery was successful, the first of its kind, and the two were married seven months later. He died in 1991; she will be 106 next month. She proudly held aloft a pure silver replica of the bullet taken from her husband’s heart—she donated the original to the Museum at Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Honolulu just months ago—but the replica too bore the scratches and dings from the original bullet, which probably bounced off part of the ship itself before striking the young sailor.
Another guest then spoke, Jeremy Newton—a former fighter pilot in Iraq now flying for United Airlines. He shared his own journey to maturity and when he stated, without political reference, “Moral courage is missing in society today,” his sentiment was inarguable.
“I thought it was wonderful,” Ramos said after the dishes had been cleared. “I’ve been to this event in years past, but to be able to host it was important to me.” The branch manager of the Bank of Marin in Healdsburg was quick to mention that his own grandfather was an army veteran. “This means a lot to me, and for us to be able to celebrate the veterans in town.”
This is the 17th consecutive year that the Rotary Club of Healdsburg Sunrise has produced the Veterans Day event, held with the cooperation of American Legion Sotoyome Post 111, whose meeting hall hosted the breakfast.
