Legacies of the Silver State: Nevada goes to war

From lowering the ramps of landing ships at Normandy on June 6, 1944, to crawling on the snow on their bellies and enduring extremely harsh weather at the Battle of the Bulge, our veterans showed great intrepidness and bravery when facing the enemy. We may never see a generation of men and women like the ones who served during World War II to ensure the world was a safer place — free from the tyranny of leaders and nations.
Slowly, the number of World War II veterans diminishes with each passing day, month and year. Newspapermen Steve Ranson, Kenneth Beaton and David C. Henley have interviewed scores of World War II veterans and learned more about them and how they helped the war effort. Additional reporters have also written about our World War II heroes — including Kaleb Roedel's in-depth stories on two Native American veterans.
Interviews included POWs, survivors of the Nazi concentration camps and veterans who remember in detail where they were and what they did. On several occasions, veterans flew Honor Flight Nevada trips to Washington, D.C., and most recently to Pearl Harbor in early 2020, and their stories have been documented. It was at that point we felt it was necessary to preserve our past newspaper articles and present them to our current and future generations so they will know of the heroism of the men and women we interviewed.
Too many times as authors, we discovered veterans from the World War II era have been very reluctant to tell their stories, but we have also discovered many of them are now more willing to talk about their service to their country. So, too, are the Holocaust survivors because they never want the world to forget the atrocities committed by their Nazi captors.
Ken has contributed his military articles for many years to the Nevada Appeal, and David's expertise in writing about the USS Nevada and its role during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and at D-Day show the determination of Americans ready to defeat a formidable enemy.
We salute our fighting men and women who, at one time in their lives, have called this great state of Nevada their home and to those sailors who served on the USS Nevada and other ships with Nevada-related names. They are all Legacies of the Silver State.

Steven R. Ranson is a retired editor and general manager of a Nevada newspaper, but he still writes articles as military editor for the Nevada News Group and a consortium of Nevada newspapers. During the past 15 years, Steve has written a number of World War II veteran profiles and continues to be active within the veteran community. As a civilian journalist, Steve also traveled to the Arabian Sea in November 2011 to document the training done at Naval Air Station Fallon and how it relates to the operations with a carrier air wing aboard an aircraft carrier. He covers both Naval Air Station Fallon and the National Guard. Steve embedded with Nevada Army National Guard units in Afghanistan twice — in November 2011 and November 2012. In 2011, he stayed with Nevada Army National Guard soldiers at Kandahar and then used Bagram Air Field as a central location. The following year, he travelled to Forward Operating Base Shank and then to Camp Phoenix near Kabul. He received two Military Reporters and Editors awards in 2011 and 2012 for his reporting from Afghanistan in addition to numerous awards from the National Newspaper Association and Nevada Press Association. Steve spent the majority of his 28 years in the Nevada Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve-Panama in public affairs, command information, visual information, commander of state headquarters and battalion adjutant. He is past president of both the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors and Nevada Press Association's board of directors. He earned a Bachelor of Journalism and Masters of Education degrees from the University of Nevada, Reno. David C. Henley has been a distinguished journalist since the 1960s. He is a foreign correspondent, the former owner of the Lahontan Valley News in Fallon, Nev., a retired Brigadier General in the Army National Guard, a former university administrator and journalism professor, and Honorary Consul of Uruguay since 1999. David is also a past president of the Nevada Press Association and has been state chairman of the National Newspaper Association. He has been involved with the General George Patton Memorial Association, the Council on America's Military Past and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He was city editor of the Daily Trojan student newspaper at USC, from which he earned a B.A. in journalism and an M.A. in political science. He also has a Ph.D in communications and journalism and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA.
The author of "From Moscow to Beirut, The Adventures of a Foreign Correspondent" published in 2013 by the Chapman University Press, Henley has reported from overseas for the Los Angeles Examiner, the Hearst, Ridder, Swift and News Group newspaper chains, and served as Washington, D.C. correspondent for the Los Angeles Examiner and the Hearst newspapers. He was the journalism department chairman at the University of Wyoming and taught five years at the USC School of Journalism, where he headed the school's news-editorial department. At Chapman University, David is a member of several committees and councils.
David is the recipient of many state, national and international writing awards. His column, My Turn, has been published in the Lahontan Valley News and other newspapers for more than 40 years.
David has specialized in western military and naval historical subjects, and his book "Battleship Nevada, The Epic Story of the Shop that Wouldn't Sink" gives a comprehensive look of the battleship's history, especially during World War II. As a resident of Carson City, Nevada for over 45 years, Kenneth Beaton has been a frequent contributor to the Nevada Appeal newspaper, and for many years he has been a voice for veterans by telling their stories during wartime, especially during World War II. Ken was eight months old when the United States declared war against Japan on Dec. 8, 1941. During World War II, his dad was ordered to U.S. Coast Guard ships on both coasts. For his first 15 years, Ken was a Coast Guard brat.
After graduating from Lynn English High School in 1958, the Massachusetts native earned an AA degree from Boston University, married, became a parent, graduated from Salem State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Education, moved to Logan, Utah, in 1971 and graduated from Utah State University with a Masters of Education in Business Education in 1978. After teaching from 1972-1994 in Nevada, Ken retired. He sold advertising, wrote 30-second radio spots, served as an attaché for three Nevada Legislative sessions and studied Conversational Italian for six semesters and Creative Memoir Writing for four semesters. Ken's mom took a picture of him in December 1942 and sent it to her brother, Richard, a member of the First Special Service Force, "The Devil's Brigade." Pvt. Daigle placed Ken's picture in his helmet. On Dec. 3, 1943 Richard was killed in action on Monte la Difensa, Italy. After Ken's parents passed away, he discovered the picture from Richard's helmet with his mom's writing on the back. After 16 years of research and two trips to climb Monte la Difensa, Ken published "A TODDLER'S PICTURE: In His Uncle's Helmet" a month before the 75th anniversary, Dec. 3, 2018.