Larson serves veterans

Volunteer helps with ‘missions’ at home

By Matt Bewley | The Daily Journal

Published Thursday, April 5, 2007

When Fergus Falls’ Elias Larson reports for volunteer duty at the Minnesota Veterans Home, he expects to have people give him a hard time.

“It’s fun,” he said of his time bantering back and forth with pals Gordon and Clayton. “The interaction with them is fun. They give you a hard time and joke with you.”

It’s a veteran thing. Vets are allowed to toss well-worn insults and off-color innuendo at former Army, Navy or Air units. As veterans, they’ve earned the right.

That’s just one of the reasons Larson gets along so well with these fellows. Not that his wife, Sharon, a civilian, does not. She spends nearly as much time there with the veterans as he does, and enjoys being able to help, he said.

They were inducted into service at the veterans home three years ago, when Elias, then a 12-year veteran of the Underwood Lions, attended a meeting there.

“They held a clinic for potential volunteers,” said the former Air Force radar operator. “You listen to people talk and you fill out forms and they tell you if you’re acceptable.”

He passed muster, was drafted, and has since been volunteered for several missions. Often times, he is assigned convoy escort duties for the hot-dog raids at a Red Hawks baseball games.

“I help get the residents into the bus. Each bus will hold six wheelchairs,” he said. “Then I help them get out of the bus and get around.”

There are missions to reconnoiter the calf-roping tactics at Red Horse Ranch and the occasional assault on the pins at Northern Aire Lanes. They patrol Wall Lake in their pontoon, where they are reported to have taken scores of walleye and pike prisoners.

Parades are attended with enthusiasm, occasionally in uniform, and trips to veterans museums and memorials sometimes conjure unwelcome images from the past.

Sometimes, after all, it is about the man, not the mission.

“There was a resident – he was terminally ill – who wanted to spend as much time as possible outside,” he said. “He was in a wheelchair, and sometimes we’d just sit out front and talk. Other times, we’d go around on the paths.”

He was a veteran named John.

Larson also serves with the Walk of Flags veterans, and winters with Sharon at Port Aransas, Texas.

For information on how to volunteer for duty at the Minnesota Veterans Home in Fergus Falls, call 218-736-0400.