Dale Long Is November 2022 Veteran Of The MonthA serviceman of the U.S. Air Force is the November 2022 Kosciusko County Veteran of the Month.
Dale Long was born Dec. 8, 1938, at Murphy Medical Center, Warsaw, to Lura and Merlin “Ping” Long, Kosciusko County Veteran Service Officer Darryl McDowell said when reading Long’s biography at the Commissioners meeting Monday.
Long was 3 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked and remembers the nightly “blackouts” of all windows in homes. Even the railroad station and Lake City Bank’s clock lights were out as were all other lights around town. Men would walk up and down the streets and pounded on your door if any light could be seen from your residents. To pass the time away through each night, his family would play dominoes by candlelight.
His first job began at age 6 as a Warsaw Times-Union newspaper carrier and he was never unemployed since until age 55 when Long decided to take some time off, McDowell said.
While growing up in Warsaw, he participated in Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and in the Civil Air Patrol until his graduation from high school. He graduated from Warsaw High School in 1956 and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1961 as the war in Vietnam was beginning to escalate.
After attending basic training in San Antonio, Texas, Long was assigned to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as the base forms and regulations manager. During his time there, he was placed in charge of accounting for and maintaining the base regulations in the manual library about the size of a three-car garage. He performed his duties so well that he received a U.S. Air Force Commendation Medal for reducing the duplication of blanks forms - “which we still have that challenge today,” McDowell said - on the base by 75%.
One of his most pertinent memories during his four years in the U.S. Air Force, that Long wanted to discuss with McDowell, McDowell said, was on Nov. 22, 1963 - the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. Long had told McDowell that the defense condition in the United States jumped from a seven to a two, which was not normal.
“We had no idea at the time what was happening. All he was told,” McDowell said, was to go out to the flight line to be issued a M-1 rifle and get on a C-124 aircraft to go somewhere. “They did remember ... that during their training that if the United States was ever attacked, they would probably see missiles coming over them in route to Washington, D.C. Later that same day, they were informed that what was going on and since the defense condition had risen from two to four, they were no longer locked down on base and could go home to their families.”
Long was honorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force in 1965 and returned to Kosciusko County to begin a new chapter in his life. He would later meet Karen and they would be married in 1976.
“His greatest claim to fame is that he is the only one in his graduating class to write and publish a book about growing up in Warsaw,” McDowell said, holding up a copy of the book.
After Long was presented the framed certificate, he said, “I’m just happy to be here and did what I did. I’m just happy to serve my country.”
