Iowa Gold Star Military Museum in Johnston Celebrates Veterans

The Iowa Gold Star Military Museum at in Johnston was bustling on Friday afternoon.

Fifth-graders from Westridge Elementary School in West Des Moines wove their way through veterans while bouncing from one exhibit to another at the museum.

For the second year, the Westridge fifth-grade class made the trip to the museum to sing to veterans, said music teacher Nancy Hartsock.

"This is the 12th year that we've had a concert," she said. "We started in 2000 after we had prepared a medley of patriotic songs. So we got in touch with the Veterans Hospital. The idea is to take it to the veterans, not to make them come to us."

John Phillips, 88 and a World War II veteran, had no problem making the trip from his retirement home at Scottish Rite Park in Des Moines.

"I come to the museum a lot," he said. "They have a machine with prisoners of war giving a talk, I'm in the machine."

Phillips enlisted when he was just 19 years old, anticipating the fight to come.

"My draft number was coming up," he said. "I enlisted in the anti-aircraft artillery so that I wouldn't have to go into the infantry. I became an officer."

But after spending time in training and teaching other soldiers, Phillips was called to duty in Europe.

"They called 4,000 AAA officers into the infantry," he said. "We went overseas on the Queen Elizabeth in 1944. Battle of the Bulge had started almost the day I got there. I went as a replacement to command troops."

Phillips and his troops had just taken a town in Belgium and cleaned out the Germans when he and a few others went ahead to set up machine guns.

"We walked into a German trap," he said. "They were waiting, I was shot five times, three in the stomach, one split my left arm and one in the bible in my shirt pocket. That probably saved my life."

Phillips was then captured, rather than killed. The German soldiers removed the bullets from his body, and without stitching him up sent him to a prison camp in Nuremberg.

"I was there the rest of the war," he said. "We did walk 120 miles to another camp until it was liberated by General Patton."

After returning to the United States, Phillips spent three months in a Hot Springs, Ark., military hospital. 

"This was great, those kids did a nice job," he said.

The experience serves as a great learning experience for the students, Hartsock said.

"This year we started with the students seeing the Vietnam Wall at the Resthaven Cemetery in Des Moines," she said. "Every year is different. The theme this year is 11/11/11. We have one song with six medleys, it covers all the branches of the armed forces, then we have five songs, so we are saying that we have 11 songs."

The trip also affords the students the chance to explore the museum.

"We really appreciate the veterans, this is such a small gesture we can give back and how grateful we are to have people that give their time and service to our country."