Omaha Iwo Jima vets gather for their final monthly meeting

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They never raised a flag on Mount Suribachi, but three Marine veterans of Iwo Jima raised glasses in a champagne toast to fallen comrades — at a final monthly meal.

On Thursday evening at the Bohemian Cafe, 90-year-old Duane Tunnyhill toasted “our brothers,” those who died in the war and those who survived but have since departed. Iwo vets Joseph “Pep” Vocelka, 91, and Leroy Hanson, 92, joined him.

“We’re dwindling down,” Hanson said. Vocelka said that “it’s been a lot of years.”

Tunnyhill dates the monthly gatherings of Iwo Jima survivors to 1976, the time of a 5th Marine Division reunion in Omaha. Local Iwo vets, regardless of their military division, since have met for lunch at various restaurants.

But they would return to the Bohemian Cafe each year on Feb. 19, the anniversary of the 1945 invasion.

Recalled Pep, who fought with the 4th Marine Division: “It was supposed to take five days.”

It took 36 days, costing 6,800 American lives and wounding 19,000. Japanese deaths in the tunnel-fortified Pacific island 750 miles from Tokyo were estimated at 19,000.

Tunnyhill, wounded by a hand grenade at Iwo Jima, traveled there last year for the 70th anniversary of the battle. The island looked totally different, he said, and had a large airport.

The trio, all widowed, met Thursday with a few relatives as well as recent widows such as Rita Stoysich (Rudy) and Ruth Lang (Ernie). So few veterans remain, Tunnyhill said, that it’s time to bring closure.

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And when he gets to heaven,
To St. Peter he will tell,
"Another Marine reporting, Sir,
I've served my time in Hell!"

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