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We salute you: Museum honors veterans

Robert C. Reed | Hickory Daily Record

World War II veteran and D-Day survivor Warren Shook displays his signaling device, a clicker, used by paratroopers on D-Day.

By Ragan Robinson | Hickory Daily Record

Published: November 16, 2009

HICKORY - When the color guard presented the stars and stripes at the Hickory Aviation Museum, generations of hands saluted in silence.

The museum held its Veterans Day ceremony Sunday to say thank you to dozens of Army, Navy and Marine veterans.

Warren Shook of Caldwell County raised a lined hand to his forehead. It was the hand that could reload a Thompson submachine gun in less than a second when he was training to fight in World War II. Shook figures he was faster than that in combat.

"I could shoot 200 times before the Germans got a shot off," he said.

The 87-year-old was among the 101st Airborne soldiers who parachuted into Normandy in preparation for D-Day, jumping from his plane as it took fire in the cockpit.

Shook's hand still works his "clicker," which he brought to the ceremony Sunday. It's the tool soldiers used to make a signature clicking noise as they roamed enemy territory after parachuting in at the beginning of D-Day. The sound was a soldier's password. It was the only way to tell him whether it was a friend or a foe the soldier could hear but not see.

Jim Dorion of Lenoir lifted a white-gloved hand to the bill of his gleaming white hat. His is a hand that refuses to idle.

The 68-year-old spent 10 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, enlisting in 1960. He took two years off before joining the Army National Guard in Connecticut for three years. Then he became a member of the Air National Guard in Ohio for more than seven years.

"I got to thinking about those 10 years I spent with the Marines and asked myself, 'Wow, am I going to waste it?'" Dorion said. "Then, after I moved back to Ohio, I started thinking about the 13 years I was going to waste."

Dorion was an illustrator for the Marines, often working on training aids during the Vietnam War, and he was a crash rescue firefighter for the Air National Guard.

Twenty-year-old Jared Wofford's raised right hand is smooth and unblemished. The N.C. State University student, a cadet in the Naval ROTC, has already sworn his intention to serve in the Navy after graduation.

He uses his hands to turn textbook pages that tell about his country's battles and its storied military history. On Sunday, he shook the hands that helped make the history.

"For me, it's just great to get to meet them and talk to them — the men who lived through it," he said.