Tribute Honors Fallen Soldier
Tribute honors fallen soldier
This fine article comes to us from Pete Wicklund with the Journal TimesMary Jacobs remembers well the day her mother received word that Mary’s brother — Maj. John L. “Jack” Jerstad — was shot down and reported as missing in action in Europe in World War II.
A girl had come to the family home in Racine to deliver a telegraph. After Jacobs’ mother, Alice, read the telegraph, she grabbed at her heart.
Jacobs, then 21 and watching from a distance, at first could not understand why her mother would show such shock. She thought it was just Jack wishing his parents a happy wedding anniversary.
“If I had only realized they weren’t sending those types of telegrams back then,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs, now 86, was in Racine on Saturday with her four children to view the new historical display that pays tribute to Jerstad and Marine Pfc. Harold C. Agerholm at the Racine Veterans Center. Jerstad, 25, a bomber in the Army Air Corps, and Agerholm, 19, who was killed is Saipan in the Pacific Theater of World War II, were both awarded the Medal of Honor for their fateful acts of heroism in the war. Jerstad-Agerholm Elementary and Middle Schools on LaSalle Street are also named for two.
Jacobs brought with her some mementos of her brother’s life to share with the volunteers who are assembling military displays for The Legacy Museum and Veterans Center, a planned expansion at the current veterans center at 820 Main St.
The current display on Jerstad and Agerholm, and another for perished space shuttle astronaut and Horlick High graduate Capt. Laurel Salton Clark, are the first displays for the future Legacy Museum.
Among the cherished items Jacobs brought to share was the encased flag that draped Jerstad’s casket when he was buried at Ardennes Cemetery in Belgium and a bust that Jacobs made of her brother in sculpting class.
Jacobs said she burst into tears when she thought that her sculpting her brother’s likeness might have been a jinx that resulted in his going missing. Her teacher, renowned Danish sculptor Christian Petersen, assured her nothing could be further from the truth. The bust does closely resemble portraits of Jerstad.
What might have tipped fate, some wonder, is that Jerstad was shot down flying a plane nicknamed “Hell’s Wench.” That came after numerous safe missions in a plane nicknamed for Jerstad — “Jerk’s Natural.” Natural referred to the numbers in the plane’s serial number adding up to seven and 11, a natural in a dice game. In fact, a pair of dice were painted on that plane.
It took seven years before the Army called Jacobs’ parents, Art and Alice Jerstad, to let them know remains had been found. The long period of time and countless tributes to Jack Jerstad prolonged the grieving process for the family. Among the tributes was the ceremony at Racine’s Holy Communion Church where the family received Jerstad’s Medal of Honor.
Read the rest of the story here…
Tags: American Valor, military tribute, soldier
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