Iowa Gold Star Military Museum In Johnston Home For Veterans

Looking for another way to honor veterans and learn a little?

There's still time to stop by the today.

The museum hosts a Memorial Day observance and open house until 4:30 p.m.

The event is likely to draw not just the curious but those that experienced war first hand.

Back in November, Johnston Patch attended a concert at the museum in honor of Veterans' Day.

There we meet, World War II Veteran John Phillips.

Phillips, 88, shared his story of enlistment and capture during the War.

"I come to the museum a lot," Phillips, who lives at Scottish Rite Park in Des Moines, 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.

Today is the day we remember heroes like Phillips, and also those loved ones we've lost without war.

The museum's open house includes displays of vintage and modern military vehicles and equipment. Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean War and

Vietnam War re-enactors will also be on hand.