World War II veteran Arnold Schweer will be 105 years old on Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. (Greenbrier Village/Facebook)
(Tribune News Service) — Arnold Schweer will be 105 years old on Friday.
Family will celebrate the World War II veteran’s birthday with a lunch party at 2 p.m. Saturday at his Greenbrier Village home.
Schweer graduated from Covington High School in 1937 and was drafted into the Army on Jan. 7, 1942, one month after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese.
He was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Forces and sent to basic training at Fort Sill. His training was cut from 26 weeks to 13 due to the war starting.
Schweer rode a troop train to Seattle, then was sent west to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. He was in the Aviation Engineering Corps helping build secret airfields.
Schweer went on to Adak Island, where he helped build a field. They narrowly escaped Japanese forces sent to Adak to destroy the U.S. facilities there when the Japanese got lost in a heavy fog.
“The military wasn’t very prepared for us, but we were eventually given old World War I guns and winter clothes,” he said.
He was on Adak for 26 months, then was sent to Okinawa to help rebuild destroyed airfields before going on to the Philippines.
At the end of the war, he received an honorable discharge and returned to Covington to farm and open Schweer Insurance Agency. He married Ione Glover, and they raised three kids.
His sister, Ester Mittelstet, is 96 and still lives in her home. Her daughter, Kathy Nutting, is here visiting from Golden, Colo., for her uncle’s birthday.
“He takes about 10 vitamins a day, has breakfast in his room every morning then exercises,” Nutting said.
“By the grace of God and heavy fog, I was able to return from war to my hometown of Covington, Okla.,” he said.
He has been a member of the Lutheran Church his entire life.
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