Rushville Elks Lodge No. 1307 held its annual Oyster Extravaganza recently. This event is the largest fundraiser for the local Elks Veterans Program, and a large crowd of more than 100 enjoyed the mouthwatering buffet selection that included oyster stew, fried oysters, livers and gizzards, turkey fries and much more.

The highlight of the evening was the introduction of the 2009 Veteran of the Year, Jim Gardner. Some of the county old-timers might remember Jim as a pretty good basketball player from Manilla prior to his graduation in 1941. After a year and a half at Central Normal Teachers College, Jim was inducted into the U.S. Army. He spent a year in the Aleutian Islands before he headed for Europe. He was assigned to the 106th Infantry Division, and in early December 1944 they were sent up to man the front lines.

At the same time a desperate Adolph Hitler was planning a huge counter-offensive. The Germans launched this surprise attack Dec. 16, 1944 and history would dub this bloody fighting arena as “The Battle of the Bulge.”

Gardner was wounded and subsequently captured by the Germans on the evening of Dec. 19. He ended up spending five months in the German POW facilities. They provided paper bandages for his three shrapnel wounds but no other medications. The winter of ’44-’45 was one of the coldest on record, but there was no heat at the camp, and so Gardner lived in the clothes on his back for the entire five months he was there. He was covered with lice by the time that the Russians liberated the camp April 29, 1945.

Gardner and the other Americans waited 10 days for American troops to retrieve them before taking matters into their own hands. He and seven others found a team of horses and a wagon and used them for the 100 mile trip back to the American lines on the Elbe River. This took them three and one-half days and on sighting the American soldiers Jim recalled, “How nice it was to be free again.”

Rushville Lodge No. 1307 is proud of Jim Gardner, as well as all who have worn the uniform of the United States military. You will never be forgotten.