LOCAL VETERANS TO HOLD MEMORIAL SERVICE TONIGHT

Their years of service and dedication have earned them the right to speak at a memorial service tonight, but the speakers hope to avoid attention to their efforts and focus on heroes of the past.

"I was just one of the tiny parts of a big machine," said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Charles Woodford.

The speakers are Woodford, who served in the Navy during World War II and fought with the Air Force in Korea and Vietnam; Sergeant Charlie Thrower, a Vietnam veteran; Specialist Burt Lehman, a Vietnam veteran and Glenneta Vogelsang, past post, district, state and national president of the VFW Ladies Auxiliary.

The memorial kicks off the 1999 Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival is a memorial service at 6:30 tonight at the flag pole in Cape County Park North. The service will include the parade of colors, the national anthem, memorial tributes, a 21-gun salute, the playing of "Taps" and an air salute fly-by of a Navy F-18.

Woodford served on several boats during World War II as a gunner. He said most of the time he did not have to fire, it was just a matter of surviving night bombings from enemy planes.

"When they bombed, it was night time bombing," Woodford said. "We never shot back because we couldn't see them."

He joined the Navy at 17 and said he couldn't wait to help out the war effort.

"I was just a boy out of Nebraska," he said. "I hadn't seen the world yet. I was too young to be scared."

Woodford said what he did in World War II was a job he had to do. The veterans who should be respected the most are the men who fought in the Revolutionary War, which is the topic of his speech.

"They are the real heroes," Woodford said. "They weren't paid worth a damn. There were no pensions. They had to bring their own rifles. They were tired of British rule and tired of being taxed too much. They fought because they were patriots."

Woodford will pay tribute to the heroes of the revolution and Lehman will honor the prisoners of war of American history --- particularly the prisoners he believes are still in Vietnam.

Lehman almost was captured himself --- an incident he will never forget.

"I wondered too far away, and I could feel the presence of some other people there," Lehman said. "I could feel some eyes looking at me. I just walked off in the other direction. But we found out that there were four or five Vietcong there where I was. It scared me. It scared me to death."

After that, he said he was a little more cautious where he walked. But coming that close is constant reminder of what prisoners of war have gone through. That is why he hopes the people at the memorial service take some time to remember the POWs tonight.

"If I had walked a little farther in that area, they might have caught me," Lehman said. "I could have been never heard from again."