Advance
THE PARKSTON
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
National
Doctor’s
Day
Volume 129; No. 13
Parkston, SD 57366
USPS 422260
75¢
lived through it
A day to say
thanks
KAREN ADKINS-RUNGE | Reporter
Avera St. Benedict Health
Center is celebrating National
Doctor’s Day Wednesday,
March 30, as a time to show
appreciation and thanks for
the contribution the physicians make to their patients,
the health center and the
community.
Parkston has four full-time
physicians on staff. They provide outpatient and inpatient
care and also are responsible
for educating future physicians in medical residencies,
the FARM Program and family practice residencies. Gale
Walker, President and CEO
of ASBHC, shared his appreciation for the physicians
of Parkston and stated that
they do much more than most
people realize.
“It’s a day set aside to
thank the doctors who are
DOCTORS | See page 16
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Roland Winter thinks about his service in the Korean War at the January 12 medal ceremony in Tripp. The Parkston Advance | Scott E. Ehler
The Forgotten War
‘I came back pretty much in one piece’
Over sixty years ago, the United States
entered into a Peace Keeping Mission,
which today we remember as the Korean
War. The war began June 25, 1950 and ended
July 27, 1953. On January 12, 2016, Korean
War Veterans were honored with the ‘Ambassador of Peace’ medal from the Republic
of Korea, to thank them for their service.
This is the third in a series of stories of five
Parkston Korean War Veterans who received
the award.
KAREN ADKINS-RUNGE | Reporter
A man always ready for the next adventure, with a ready smile and a droll sense of
humor, Roland Winter of Parkston became
reflective when asked about his service in
the Korean War. At just 20 years of age, he
enlisted in the Army in September of 1952.
He spoke in a matter of fact way about
the experience, but the memories were not
always easy ones.
“Actually, I volunteered, but I would have
gotten drafted anyway. I didn’t want to
leave in the summer time, I wanted to leave
in the wintertime, so I just volunteered and
got in there early. Army, anti-aircraft artillery, or triple A,” he explained with a laugh.
Growing up on a farm near Parkston,
Winter was always interested in traveling
and seeing the world. Joining the United
WINTER | See page 16
16
Etc.
No. 13, March 30, 2016 • www.parkstonadvance.com
WINTER:
‘I went over a boy, and it made a man out of me’
From page 1
States Army was definitely one way to
see the world.
“We took our basic in Ft. Bliss, Texas,
down at El Paso. Then, we got shipped to
Boston and from there we got reassigned
with the New York National Guard. They
were scattered around Manhattan pretty
much. They got activated to go to Korea,
and like with any Army unit, there were
guys that weren’t in long and some were
in long enough, short-timers we called
them. There were enough short-timers,
so the whole battalion went over,” he
said.
“We left from New York City. We left
on a ship and headed for Puerto Rico,
where we picked up 1,100 troops, then
we went to South America and picked
up 400 more troops. We went through the
Panama Canal and stopped in Hawaii,
we needed fuel by then. From there, we
went on to Japan, then on to Korea. It
took 34 days. Now you can go half way
around the world in an airplane and it
takes 30 hours.
“It (the sea trip) was kind of boring.
Another guy and I, we got to talking to
some sailors. So, we volunteered to do
some work for them. We got to go up
on the ship, chip paint and painted. We
were happy to do it. What do you do
for 34 days?” Winter said. “We weren’t
sailors, we were Army, so we didn’t have
any official jobs on the ship. The Atlantic
gets a lot of rough weather. Storms come
right through there, but we never had big
waves, very few people got seasick. I certainly didn’t. I think some of the people
just ate too much.”
When they landed in Korea, they
received their assignments. They were
located about 40 miles south of Seoul.
There were about 1,200 soldiers located
there to defend the air base, with 12 batteries in the battalion. In the Army, what
was on ‘paper’, wasn’t always the reality
and ranks were not given on a regular
basis.
“I had a cousin, he got over there, was
there one day, and he got a raise already
from private to First Class. There were,
I think, 12 of us on one gun and I was
the first one that got rank on that gun,
six months later. My job on paper was
ammunition Sergeant. I never did make
Sergeant. That’s just the way it goes,” he
said with a laugh. “By the time I made
Corporal, they signed the armistice.”
Winter spoke of his duty as just a job
he had to do. He made light of any danger he may have been in and explained
that mostly, operating the anti-aircraft
guns was routine.
“Our main job was to protect this
airbase. We were stuck on a hill. A little
boring, but we were safe. We operated the big guns. They weighed 10,000
pounds. Our ammunition weighed 50
pounds apiece. They were anti-aircraft
guns, but we’d use them on the front
lines, too, but we didn’t do that much.
If you’re on the front lines, you can’t
move them around very quick. They had
their own wheels you could mount them
on. From the base where we were, we
just zeroed in our guns every day. There
were four guns, so every fourth day we
had to shoot up in the air, actually. We
had a radar machine that would pick up
stuff, we’d shoot four times a day. When
we were on the front line, I don’t really
remember how much we’d shoot. Sometimes, they’d wake us up at night to do
it. When we went up there, the guns were
already in place, we didn’t take ours
up there. There were forward observers there as near the front lines as they
could get. They’d see something they
didn’t like and they’d call back and give
us coordinates, tell us where to shoot,
and we’d go out and blast away for a
while. We didn’t know, way back there,
whether we hit anything or not, we were
probably two, two-and-a-half miles away
from the front. The guns had about a
three mile range. Observers, they could
see it, kind of. If it wasn’t quite right
they’d change your aim a little bit,” he
said.
He spoke much more enthusiastically
of having the opportunity to do carpentry work while he was there. For him,
that was more exciting than operating
the guns.
“I always like carpentering, and we
built several buildings there. After a
while, I wasn’t even on the gun, I was always a carpenter, which I liked,” he said.
He continued to do carpentry work
when he returned home, using skills he
learned while in the Army, He spoke
proudly of completing his first home
with the help of his wife, LaValle.
While he could have stayed in the
Army, he decided that wasn’t for him.
“I was a farm boy, I wanted to get
back to my farm,” he said.
His wife, LaValle, created a shadowbox for the many medals he received in
the service. It is hung on the wall of his
den. The new medal from the Republic
of Korea has a place of honor next to it.
The scarf the veterans were awarded at
the presentation is draped artistically on
the wall.
LaValle explained that while Roland
may not say a lot about it, he was excited and pleased to receive the honor.
“The speaker really brought out that
if it weren’t for the American soldiers,
where would they be today? They would
all be Communist,” she said. “It was a
very nice ceremony and thank you to the
veterans.
When asked about it being called the
“Forgotten War”, Winter responded quietly, shaking his head.
“It always has been. I don’t know why.
We lost a lot of soldiers there. I can’t
remember the exact number, it was thousands,” he quietly explained. “I wouldn’t
want to do it again, but I’m glad I did it.
I think of the poor guys who got hurt… I
came back pretty much in one piece,” he
said with a somber smile. “I went over a
boy and it made a man out of me.”
DOCTORS:
‘We just appreciate all our doctors being in the area’
From page 1
here in our community. We
couldn’t do it without them.
They are a tremendous
asset to our community.
We’re blessed. We have four
Family Practice Physicians,
most rural communities
HONKE
don’t. Our doctors are kind
of a special breed because
they are involved in lots
of teaching. Our docs go
above and beyond, they
spend time educating future
physicians, hopefully for
VANDERPOL this community and other
small communities. They’re
very involved in the community,” Walker said. “They
put that extra effort towards
teaching. Teaching is a huge
commitment on their part.
But, it keeps the instrucWICKERSHAM tion current, modern and
up-to-date. Because if you’re
dealing with students, you’re
dealing with the most recent
advances in health care.”
National Doctor’s Day is
a day on which the service
of physicians to the nation
SANGER
is recognized annually. The
first Doctor’s Day obser-
vance was March 30, 1933, in Winder,
Georgia. On October 30, 1990, President
George H. W. Bush designated Doctor’s
Day as a national holiday to be celebrated
March 30. This holiday commonly is
celebrated in healthcare organizations to
recognize the contributions of physicians
to individual lives and communities.
The four physicians in Parkston are
Richard Honke, MD, Antoinette VanderPol, MD, Jason Wickersham, MD, and
Larissa Sanger, MD. Julie Semmler, Marketing and Public Relations with ASBHC
shared that the doctors duties encompass
more than many people realize. Their
commitment to the community is more
than a job, it is their contribution to their
patients and the health of the community.
“We just appreciate all our doctors
being in the area, and I’m sure our community does, too. They are on call one
week out of the month. They also go to
rural health clinics in neighboring communities and also visit the nursing homes
in Parkston and Tripp and Our Home in
Parkston,” she said.
While many rural communities are losing health care services and physicians,
Parkston’s health center continues to
grow, due in a large part to the commitment of the local physicians.
Linda Maas is with health information
at ASBHC. She mentioned that the doctors
are very involved in the community and
that they do not look to their jobs being
nine-to-five. Because of their dedication,
they are strong advocates for the Emergency Room Services and the OB Services
that are provided by the health center.
“They’re up-to-date, they’re very active
in the community and are active in their
committees in the Avera system. They are
active in the American Academy of Family Physicians (Honke and Wickersham
are past Presidents of the organization).
They want to keep our ER open and keep
the OB services, they really like providing
those services,” Maas said.
Sanger is the newest physician at Avera
St. Benedict, having started her practice
in Parkston six months ago. She brings
a strong commitment to Parkston’s rural
family practice. She is appreciative of the
support of the other physicians at the facility. The physicians work collaboratively
for the best outcomes for their patients.
She discussed the unique needs of a rural
medical practice and how appreciative
she is of the specialists that partner with
ASBHC.
“Primary care is key for rural areas.
That broad spectrum primary care where
you can see children and adults and the
elderly and manage complex diseases is
even more important because the specialists are hours and even hundreds of miles
away in some cases. There’s a huge need
for doctors, a need for good doctors. You
really have to stay up and keep your A
game, you can’t slack. The teamwork
that I saw and the ‘normal people doing
medicine’ personalities that I saw when
I interviewed here helped to draw me
here. Also, having the specialists come to
the rural areas is a huge service to our
patients. There are transportation issues
that aren’t easily fixed. The specialists
understand rural medicine and rural
family medicine. They have a good idea of
how we can partner with them. We have
a good team. It makes it so successful in
keeping our patients in their community
and in their homes much longer when
we have good teamwork, we have home
health services, we have the nursing home
and assisted living in our community that
helps keep people in their community. It
helps keep our community strong,” she
explained.
Much effort, commitment and dedication is required by the physicians to
provide all of the services that are offered
at the health care center in Parkston.
Sometimes we take for granted the services that are available, until we need those
services and realize just what a difference
these professionals make in individual
lives and in the community. Appreciation
of our health care facility and the physicians who work to create a successful
rural practice doesn’t have to be shown
only on one day, but March 30 is a day
we can begin to thank the experienced,
caring physicians which help to make our
community great.