Swedish family renews NATO-forged bonds with retired Waterloo general
Posted
by Pat Kinney
on Wednesday, February 12, 2025
WATERLOO — A retired U.S. Army Reserve major general received some international visitors this week -- the family of a fellow NATO officer with whom he served.
Retired U.S. Army Reserve Maj. Gen. Evan "Curly" Hultman was visited this week by Jonas and Suzana Axeheim of Sweden and their college-age sons Leopold and Theodore, or Leo and Theo.
The Axeheim family of Sweden attended retired U.S. Army Reserve Maj. Gen Evan "Curly" Hultman's coffee group at Friendship Village Monday. Pictured clockwise from lower left are Hultman, Theodore Axeheim, Leopold Axeheim, David Webber, Wallace Sulentic, Stephanie Boeckenstedt, Soren Hultman, Suzana Axeheim, Jonas Axeheim and Jim Johnson.
Hultman met the family in Madrid, Spain in 2016 in his role as honorary chairman for life of the Interallied Confederation of Reserve Officers, more commonly known by its French acronym CIOR (Confédération Interalliée des Officiers de Réserve), an organization of military reserve officers within the NATO alliance. Jonas Axeheim was a Swedish army officer at the time.
Sweden began its affiliation with NATO in 1994 through Partnership for Peace program, in which Hultman was heavily involved and helped bring former Warsaw Pact and other nations into the NATO alliance after the fall of the Soviet Union. Sweden became a full member of NATO in March 2024, following Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
At the meeting in Madrid, Hultman, of Swedish ancestry himself, struck up a conversation with young Theo and then got to know the entire family. The two families have been fast friends ever since. Jonas still works for the Swedish military and Suzana is a politician and business owner of a complex of artisan shops in Helsingborg in southern Sweden. Suzana commented that her family has practically became part of the Hultman family.
The Axeheims stopped in Waterloo over the weekend to visit Hultman as well as the Grout Museum District and the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum. Hultman had brought the family to the museum in 2018.
Leo and Theo are both university students — Leo in fashion design, formerly in political science; and Theo in history.
They also sat in on Hultman's regular coffee group, which includes retired Waterloo Industries president Wallace Sulentic; Jim Johnson, co-founder of Fish-Johnson Insurance in Waterloo and British-born longtime IBM employee David Webber.