I was born on January 24th, 1930 to Emil and Theresa (Kreikemeier) Brune at their farm home in rural Dodge County. I attended rural district #52 elementary school, and later graduated from Dodge High School in 1948. I helped my father farm until the time I was drafted into the Army.

I was 21 years old when I was drafted into the Army on October 1st, 1951. We went to Fort Omaha for the induction ceremony. Then we took a train to Camp Crowder, Missouri. Here we got our shots and were processed, and issued our new wardrobe, and had to mail our civilian clothing home.

A troop train took us to Camp Roberts, California. My pay was $74 a month. The first eight weeks were basic training. During this time we never left the base. On completion of basic training I got to come home for Christmas. In January it was back to Camp Roberts and I attended Radio Operator’s School until April of 1952. Here I learned the Morris Code. During this time we could get weekend leave. Several times I hitchhiked to the Bakersfield area to visit cousins who farmed in the San Joaquin Valley. They were clearing land and developing it for irrigation. This was a desert area. As soon as I finished Radio Operator’s School, I had a two weeks leave to come home and attend the wedding of my sister, Alice, who married Francis Dirkschneider.

Then it was back to San Francisco to board a troop ship to Japan. There were approximately 5,000 troops on board, most of them were very sick, leaning over the edge of the ship, feeding the fish. We were allowed only two punches a day on our meal ticket, but we didn’t seem to need any more. This trip lasted about eight days, including crossing the International Date Line.

When we landed at Camp Drake, Japan, we were divided up. Some of us stayed in Japan, and others were shipped to Korea. I stayed in Japan where we took a train to the most southern island of Kyushu, to the Ashiya Air Force Base. It was very mountainous most everywhere in Japan. Our base was on the North side of the island, right across from Korea. We were stationed at Ashiya as a defensive installation. Here I was a radioman with the 507th AAA. In October I was sent to Tokyo for another four weeks of schooling. Here I did some touring, and found that most people were friendly to the men in uniform. (The whole country smelled like fish). The only damage we saw was Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where there were square miles of damage that still wasn’t cleaned up from WWII. This damage was caused from the atomic bombings.

We ate at the Air Force base, because our unit didn’t have food services, and we lived in a tent. During my final months at Ashiya a terrible Typhoon went across the island of Kyushu. Six hundred forty civilians were killed, and there was a lot of flooding. We anchored our tents down, and were at a high enough elevation to escape the flooding.

In September of 1953, after one and a half years in Japan, we returned to San Francisco, spending about sixteen days at sea. From there we were shipped by train to Camp Carson, Colorado, for our discharge and transferred to the inactive reserve for eight more years.

After I returned, Norma Kluthe and I were married on February 17th, 1955, at the Sacred Heart Church in Olean, Nebraska. We lived in Pleasant Valley on a farm about 9 ½ miles southeast of Dodge, for the next 57 years. Here we raised our family, Paul, Larry, Steven, Mary Jo, Rodney, and Russell.

Steven served ten years in the Army Reserve, which included a 9 month active duty tour in Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm. Mary Jo enlisted in the Air Force after High School and was stationed in Germany during Desert Storm. After 21 years she retired as a Major from the Air Force.

I served 25 years on the Dodge Rural Fire Board, served on the Dodge School Bus Co. board, the Dodge County Extension Board, the Pleasant Valley Township Board, and was Vice Commander of the American Legion. We also were Eucharistic Ministers at St. Wenceslaus for a number of years.

We did a number of vacations during the later years, traveling through most of the States, including Alaska. In the year 2000 while Mary Jo was stationed in Germany, we spent three weeks traveling through Europe. We went to France, Omaha beach and Paris, saw the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Bridge at Remagen, went to Haarren, which is the origin of our ancestors. Then we went to Munich, and the site of Dachow, Hitler’s concentration camp, Austria, where we saw Hitler’s summer home in the mountains, through Lichtenstein, Switzerland, and through the Black Forest. It was a wonderful trip of a lifetime.

We moved off the farm and into Dodge in 2011, where we are residing at this time. We belong to St. Wenceslaus Parish, The American Legion and Auxiliary, and are enjoying our retirement.

In 2014 I was honored to accompany a group of Korean War veterans on the Honor Flight to Washington D.C. We were flown to Washington D.C. for one day and treated to see the memorials and honored with a wonderful homecoming at the airport. It was an unforgettable experience.