Ken Hazen will be the first to tell you that he isn’t a hero.
“I am not a hero. The heroes are dead and buried,” he said in his Rico home, while looking at a photo of himself taken after enlisting in the Navy during World War II.
But a hero was exactly what Hazen, 84, was treated like when on Sept. 21 Hazen boarded a plane with 93 other World War II veterans and was flown to Washington D.C. courtesy of the Honor Flight Program out of Grand Junction.
“It was wonderful,” Hazen said. “It was quite a trip.”
Hazen, along with daughter Jenny Nunley, who went as a chaperone and paid her way, got to visit Arlington Cemetery, the World War II memorial, the Korean War memorial and the Vietnam Memorial, in addition to many other sites.
“It was great and it was a really moving experience, especially Arlington Cemetery,” Hazen said.
Hazen had never been to Washington D.C. and neither had Nunley.
Nunley said just boarding the plane with the veterans was a moving experience.
“I couldn’t help but think about all the stories in that plane,” she said. “They are the whole reason we are here. I would just think about them as they were young and 17 and how they changed the course of the country.”
Hazen said he was honored to see the grave of Audie Murphy at Arlington, a movie star who was known as the most decorated soldier after the war.
“Now he was a hero,” Hazen smiled.
When Hazen was 17, he enlisted in the Navy and managed to never be sent overseas. He was first sent to New Orleans to go on a tanker only to find out the war was over in Europe. He was then sent to California to go to Japan only to become gravely ill.
He nearly died in California of something medics could only figure was malaria, strange since he hadn’t been sent overseas. So he spent three months in quarantine in Long Beach, California.
The war was over when he got out.
“They dropped a bomb and it was over real quick,” he said, speaking of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The year was 1945.
“He doesn’t think he is a hero because he didn’t go overseas,” Nunley said. “I think he is because he is my dad. But they all think that way. He signed up and because of his willingness to sign up at 17 and to give it all for this country — that is enough for me.”
In fact, Hazen said he begged his parents to join the war because his older brother, Keith, was fighting in it. His brother, four years older than Ken had left the family’s farm in Illinois and was fighting in Germany and France.
Honor Flight is a nonprofit organization that transports veterans to Washington D.C. where they can reflect on their memorials. Top priority is given to World War II survivors and terminally ill veterans. Keith Hazen, his brother, took a flight last year. Many were told during the September trip that it was the last flight for the Grand Junction area.
When Hazen and Nunley and the 93 veterans returned from the Nation’s Capitol, there was a hero’s welcome.
“There must have been 1,000 people there to greet us,” he said.
There were Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, bands, military personnel, police and many others waving flags and signs and playing songs from the ‘40s.
“It was great,” Hazen said.
Nunley said her dad continues his patriotic spirit. He is a retired crane operator and he and his wife Marlene live in Rico. She writes a weekly Rico Report column for the Journal.
He also helps out whenever he can. He mows the church lawn, helps out neighbors whenever he can and recently he rushed off from this interview to help a neighbor winterize their home.
“He is the greatest patriot I know. He loves his country,”Nunley said.