D.C. military memorial cheers Iowa women vets

Posted by Pat Kinney on Thursday, July 26, 2018

WATERLOO – Kathryn DiDomenico was in tears – not of grief, but of joy.

Forty-five years ago, she was tending to soldiers severely wounded in Vietnam. They touched her heart.

And, nearly five decades later, someone touched hers.

It was a director at The Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

“She wants my story!” DiDomenico said.

Not just for a day. But for posterity.

DiDomenico, of Raymond, visited the memorial on a recent Cedar Valley Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. She was one of six women on the flight. Organizers believe it was a record number of women veterans on any of the 20-plus flights since they began in locally in 2011. A large number of their Cedar Valley-area World War II-era sisters in arms were on the first Honor Flight out of Cedar Rapids in 2010, before the Waterloo flights began.

DiDomenico was an Army nurse stationed in El Paso, Texas in the early ‘70s and tended to a number of wounded from Vietnam. She served from 1970-72.

“I took care of everybody when they got flown back,” she said. “We got a Greyhound busload a day.” She was in El Paso for 10 months. Then to Korea. Then to Fort Riley, Kan.

“When I was in El Paso I worked mainly with neurosurgery patients and orthopedics. I worked in the amputee unit.

“I had a kid – and I have to say he was a kid, because he was 18 – who lost both legs and an arm. And he would hang – bless his heart –he would hang from his (rehabilitation exercise) trapeze like a little monkey and swing. He looked at me and said, ‘Babe, who’s more patriotic than me? On the Fourth of July I gave both legs and an arm.’

“And I mean, what do you say? What do you say?” she asked.

“I baked cookies and made brownies for them,” she said. “It was kind of against the rules. But hey, the needed it. Not only was I their nurse – I was an old lady at 24 – But they needed, like mothering. Because they were so far away from home.”

The center’s very existence is a vindication for DiDomenico and her sister veterans on the recent Honor Flight, all Vietnam  or Vietnam-era veterans from different branches of service. They included Terri Calhoon of Buckingham, U.S. Marine Corps, 1973-77; Denise Rogers of Waterloo, Navy 1973-76; Kathleen Fields of Cascade, Navy 1963-65; Elaine Amundson of Waterloo, Navy 1970-72; and Mary Henneman of Cedar Falls, Navy 1969-72.

Henneman was accompanied by her 16-year-old grandson from Wisconsin. She was added the flight roster at the last minute due to the cancellation. For her, service is a family affair and she didn’t make the recent trip to Washington just for herself.

“My father was in World War II – Purple Heart, Bronze Star – and also was in the Korean War, a 20-year veteran. It’s kind of cool to share it with my grandson,” she said. “It’s been overwhelming, but exciting for both of us.”

The memorial, formally known as the Women in Military Service to America Memorial, invites all women veterans to register and be part of the memorial’s database. More information may be obtained at www.womensmemorial.org/