Veterans express pride for special walking canes

By Jennifer Ruth  
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — For more than a year, nearly 2,000 men marched through jungle terrain, carrying all their ammunition, food and supplies. No medics, no retreat and in times of battle, the jungle would become the final resting place of comrades who could not be trekked out.
Pioneer Times photo/Jennifer Ruth
PROUD TO BE VETERANS — World War II veterans, Robert Nason, John Vincent and Dean Folsom, all of Houlton, show off their specially engraved walking canes. Each decal on the cane represents each year that the men have walked in the Memorial Day parade in Bangor. The three have been doing the walk for 10 years.
    Houlton veteran John Vincent was one of those men. He was a muleskinner and more than 60 years after his tour of duty, he can still remember that mule.
    “It was all jungle warfare, and there was only 2,000 of us,” he recalled. “I forget how many miles we walked but the only way we could carry our ammunition was on packed mules. We never had any trucks.
    “You had to unload that pack every night, take all the ammunition off, clean the mule’s hooves out, take him down to get water, bring him back and then pack him back up again,” he explained. “Those animals were smart.”
    They were also a lifesaver for Vincent. He liked working with animals and besides feeling a little comfort from time to time, those mules kept him alive when his fellow soldiers couldn’t.
    “We went through streams and the last campaign we were there, the Japs showed up and there was this stream and we crossed that stream 89 times that day and sometimes I’d be up to my ankles and sometimes I’d be up to my knees,” he explained. “I couldn’t swim a stroke and all the fellows around me kept an eye on me. Five mules and five men, and if one mule had ever acted up, I’d have gone right to the bottom.”
    That memory is as vivid today as it was then and it’s because of the experiences of veterans like Vincent that a special Veterans’ Walking Stick emerged. Vincent and two of his friends have been presented with the specially engraved sticks from a company in Bangor and for every year they walk in the veteran’s parade in Bangor, a special decal is added. So far, Vincent has 10 decals.
    “They started this at the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge in 1996,” he explained. “Since then, every time we go down, they put a decal on that.”
    Army veteran Dean Folsom and Navy Seamen First Class Robert Nason are also holders of the stick and are proud of their contributions to their country.
    “It’s something you belong to and we’re invited down every year to be in the parade,” explained Folsom. “It gives you a really good feeling.”
    Folsom enlisted in December 1945 and worked as a clerk typist until his discharge in April 1946. Nason was posted in Okinawa during World War II.
    “It makes me feel really good,” explained Nason. “If it weren’t for these guys, I wouldn’t have it.”
    Vincent said the sticks began as a special gift for World War II veterans, but that honor is now being passed onto Vietnam and Korean vets as well.
    “For me, it’s a treasure because of what we went through,” he explained. “You can’t replace it. I remember when Dean and I were marching one year and a woman jumped right out of the crowd and gave me a big hug and it made me feel really good. It was something else.
    “Having that happen, it blows your chest right out,” he remarked.
    Vincent said if anyone wanted to find out more about the walking sticks, they should contact their local American Legion. Vincent is a member of the Bangor American Legion.