Amanda Lutey
Nelson and Dolly Birschbach celebrate their 59th wedding anniversary today, a day earlier than the wedding they planned.
Editor’s Note -- In honor of Veterans Day, the Daily Citizen is running a series of stories about veterans.
Nelson and Dolly Birschbach celebrate 59 years of marriage today, but the anniversary of their wedding should have been Nov. 11.
Nelson was serving at Selfridge Air Force Base in Mt. Clemmens, Mich., in 1950. He expected to be stateside for a year, so the couple planned their wedding. Guests were invited, and cake and flowers were ordered for a Saturday ceremony.
Plans changed when Birschbach learned that Friday he was going to be shipped out that afternoon. A friend helped track down Dolly and they decided to marry that day.
The chapel on the base was being remodeled, and the Birschbachs said the hammering stopped long enough for them to say their vows. Dolly said that she did not even remove her coat and that she cried through the ceremony.
Nelson shipped out that afternoon and the couple didn’t see each other again for a year. They never really had a honeymoon.
Nelson Birschbach’s military service began during World War II when he was 19.
“I sort of volunteered for the draft,” said Birschbach, originally from Mount Calvary.
He went through 16 weeks of basic training in the Army, and learned how to operate an M7 tank destroyer.
After spending a week’s furlough at home, he was sent to California. There he boarded a troop ship for a trip across the Pacific to Japan.
He was among the first occupation troops in the area, but soon found himself transferred from the Army to the Air Corps.
“My captain said, ‘You’re a farm boy. You must know something about engines,’” Birschbach said.
He was taken to the base water plant and went to work. He said that he never stood guard or had inspection — his job was taking care of the water. He was discharged in January 1947.
Birschbach said he went out with his friend Arlen Linde in Fond du Lac that August, They “had a few too many beers” and both decided to join the Air Force Reserve.
The Korean War began in June 1950, and Birschbach was recalled to duty in August.
Birschbach continued to work in water purification during the war and was assigned to an air base that was once run by North Korea. The base had an artesian well.
“They were concerned that the water may have been poisoned, so we pumped the well out first,” Birschbach said. “We could see all kinds of debris at the bottom when the water level dropped.”
He was sent down to clean up the well, one bucket at a time, sending up rifles, carbines and guns.
“The last thing I could feel was human hair,” said Birschbach, who pulled it out and put it in a bucket.
Next he found the source of the hair. There were several human heads in the well. He sent those up in the bucket too.
“My captain said, ‘Thank God they are not Americans,’” Birschbach said.
Birschbach said that one of the nicknames he was called during his service was “Iodine” because that is often what the water tasted like.
“I can say that I never lost a G.I. to cryptosporidium,” Birschbach said.
Birschbach returned home from Korea in 1951, and was discharged from the reserve in 1954.
He began working for Singer Sewing Machine Co. in Fond du Lac, and was promoted and transferred to Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., and LaCrosse. While in LaCrosse, he asked for another transfer. He was given the choice of Illinois or Beaver Dam.
“When we moved to Beaver Dam, it felt like home,” Dolly Birschbach said. “We’ve been here for 40 years.”
The couple has four children and two grandchildren.
“I really had a good duty,” Birschbach said of his years of service.
alutey@capitalnewspapers.com