The final salute

In November, a special friend of mine passed away. He was a comrade in the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 6125.

The VFW had the honor of giving him his final send off – with a 21-gun salute. What made it more endearing was his grandniece playing taps at the end of the ceremony.

H.R. (Bob) Herring, was one of 16 children, some of whom still live in the Platte Valley.

The first time I met Bob was at a VFW meeting. Dick Ament had invited me to come down and I sat next to Bob’s wife Bobbie. She patted me on the knee several times and said “I am so glad you are here. I have been the only woman in the VFW for 20 years.”

The couple reminded me of my own paternal grandparents. Bob was gruff on the outside with a deep baritone voice, but soft-hearted on the inside – especially when it came to his wife Bobbie. Like my grandparents, they had been married 66 years when Bobbie passed away.

I visited them at their home many times and they were always laughing and sharing their memories of the life they had. One of their favorite stories to tell was how they met. Bobbie always started by saying she was with the first contingency of WAVES (Women accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). She and Bob worked on opposite sides of a divider and Bobbie was always teasing Bob about one thing or another. Bob would say that Bobbie asked him to get married and he said “huh?” and she thought he said “yeah.”

They lived simply and were rich with family and friends they cherished. It was obvious in the pictures on their wall.

At the VFW meetings, Bob always sat to my left. He was 90 years old and still very involved with the VFW. He had a special pride that he, his wife and his son Robert Herring were charter members of the local VFW and he wanted to keep it going.

While he was unable to march in parades, he always took part in memorial ceremonies and rode a float in the Woodchoppers Jamboree parade. He and his wife were grand marshals one year.

When he celebrated his 90th birthday last summer, friends and family packed Grandview Park to wish him happy birthday.

Bob loved telling stories, but I learned new stories at his funeral and through his obituary. He was waiting for his number to come up to be drafted and he found out his boss had him deferred. He quit his job and enlisted in the Navy. I knew that he built the Rick Martin Memorial at the park in Riverside, but at the funeral I learned he also built the gates at the Encampment Cemetery.

He was a man who had done or tried everything, and there are all kinds of reminders of him around in the Valley. The large monument at Grandview Park started with an idea from Bob to recognize all the veterans in the southern part of the Valley.

Whenever you asked Bob how he was, he always said, “I’m nice.” and he truly was.

His baritone voice and his sweet smile will be missed by many. But he is now with the love of his life telling stories to angels about their life on earth.