MONTICELLO – Bill Mitze can still keep up with the strokes of his age on the golf course and is still doing pretty well for his 90 years.
This will benefit the Korean War veteran when he takes part in an honor flight from the Land of Lincoln to Washington, DC on August 27.
He will be accompanied by his son Steve, also of Monticello, to tour a number of memorials and other sites that honor the sacrifice and contributions of the country’s war veterans.
Robert Rubel, also of Monticello, flew carrier-based fighter jets for the Navy and, although never officially deployed, was involved in numerous near-misses during his 30-year career in the Navy and another 13 years as a civilian naval instructor.
He is accompanied on the journey by Seth Floyd.
Mitze, who later became a long-time school administrator at Monticello, was drafted into the Army in 1953, while the Korean War was still raging, and remained there until 1956, but was not required to go abroad.
He was stationed in the 82nd Airborne Field Artillery and made 22 parachute jumps – his first from a C-192 twin-engine propeller aircraft.
Mitze said he was looking forward to the trip.
“It will be a long, hard day,” he said, “but good things take time and effort.”
Mitze made his first skydive while stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He said he wasn’t nervous.
“You don’t even think about it,” he said. “The training you do at the end of those six weeks, you just want to get it over with. After that, you get a little used to it. It was actually kind of fun, except you needed a lot of equipment.”
The 82nd Airborne Division was equipped with 105 mm howitzers for parachute attacks.
Mitze was happy about his experiences in the army.
“It helped to learn discipline,” he said. “You learn that you can do things you never thought you could do. You learn to work together. You are part of a unit and what you do is important to the others in the unit and vice versa.”
Mitze said he would support conscription, which he said would probably never be reintroduced except in times of war.
Military service “helps you grow up quickly,” he said.
Mitze has been to DC before and seen many of the monuments, but not the Air and Space Museum.
Mitze is from Warsaw, Illinois, on the Mississippi River and came to Monticello in 1970 as a high school principal. He retired in 1993 after 23 years there.
“I still play golf two or three times a week,” he said. “I don’t hit the ball very far. I’m happy if I can hit it 200 yards. Fortunately, I’m pretty accurate.”
Rubel, who is from Rockford, first flew the A-7 Corsair fighter jet for about 12 years and later the F-18 Hornet.
He landed almost 900 times on nine different carriers, 300 of them at night.
Rubel joined the Navy as an ensign in 1966 and attended the University of Illinois. He was commissioned an officer in 1971, while the Vietnam War was still ongoing.
Rubel spent 18 months in flight school and received his wings in February 1973, when the United States withdrew from Vietnam.
His first deployment was in November 1973 in the Mediterranean aboard the USS Independence, immediately after the Yom Kippur War.
There was great tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets supported Egypt, which had not done well in the war, while the United States supported Israel.
“We flew over Soviet ships looking for smoke that might indicate a missile launch,” Rubel said. “They had anti-ship missiles. We only had bombs.”
The US was at DEFCON level 3, meaning the Air Force, including strategic bomber crews and missile operators from the Strategic Air Command, must be ready to launch a nuclear strike within 15 minutes. Fortunately, there was no exchange of fire.
“It was tense,” Rubel said. “That’s the situation I got into.”
Later, Rubel was in training in Greece when the country’s government was overthrown.
When Rubel and other Americans attempted to take off from this military airport, the runway was blocked by trucks. Rubel and others changed into civilian clothes, escaped through a hole in the fence and hid in a backyard hotel in a fishing village.
They didn’t know who had taken over the government.
“We started making plans to steal a fishing boat to get away from there,” Rubel said.
However, they soon learned that a pro-American faction had staged a government takeover and were allowed to fly out.
Rubel said these were just two of the difficulties he had been involved in over the years.
He wrote an autobiography, which he has not published, although it is obvious that the man can write: “I have published over 50 journal articles on naval strategy, aviation and military history,” he said.
In addition to his time as an officer, Rubel served for eight years as dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, the research division of the Naval War College.
Rubel has been to DC several times, but has only visited the Vietnam War Memorial to read the names of three UI classmates who were killed in the war.
Other stops include the World War II and Korean War memorials, Arlington National Cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Lincoln Memorial, the National Air & Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia, the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial and the U.S. Air Force Memorial.
Other area residents participating in the Honor Flight include: Paul Wilhelm, Camargo; Melvin Clarkson, Cerro Gordo; Gary Miller, Mahomet; James Moore, Robert Munson, Nicholas Nicholas, Roger Prather and Gary Randall, all of Monticello; and Dennis Scheu, Savoy.
