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Ground breaking for Camp Crowder occurred on August 30, 1941, led by the engineering firm of Burns and McDonnell, of Kansas City, Missouri.During World War II, Camp Crowder became the duty location for contingents of the Women's Army Corps, the home to a Signal Corps Replacement Training Center, and provided basic training to new recruits. While thousands of Signal Corps recruits trained on the nearly 43,000-acre site, a prisoner of war camp was created to house more than 2,000 prisoners, the majority of whom were captured German soldiers.Camp Crowder's legacy has been perpetuated through the decades by the late Mort Walker, creator of the iconic Beetle Bailey comic strip, who received inspiration for his fictional Camp Swampy while stationed at the camp in 1943. Additionally, episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show paid homage to Camp Crowder since the show's creator, Carl Reiner, spent time there in World War II.In later years, much of the camp's original property became home to Crowder College while 4,358 acres has been retained by the Missouri National Guard for use as a training site.Jeremy P. Amick, a former Missouri National Guardsman, is a military historian/public affairs officer with the Silver Star Families of America and has for years strived to preserve Missouri's military legacy. Images were obtained from the author's personal collection, Missouri State Archives, Museum of Missouri Military History, and Burns and McDonnell.

In 1908, Camp Clark came into existence when it was established as the State Rifle Range in Nevada, Missouri, and quickly progressed into the primary marksmanship training and encampment site for the Missouri National Guard. On August 5, 1917, when the entire National Guard of the United States was drafted into federal service for World War I, the camp became a mobilization and early training site for more than 10,000 Missouri National Guard soldiers. With the passing of Brig. Gen. Harvey C. Clark, a beloved adjutant general, the location was officially renamed Camp Clark in his honor. Aviator Charles Lindbergh, who acquired worldwide fame for his transatlantic flight in 1927, spent time training at Camp Clark in the 1920s. During World War II, the camp fell under federal control and became an internment site for Italian and German prisoners of war. In the years after the war, the camp underwent various expansions but continues to serve as a training location for various Missouri National Guard units and, in recent years, has even been utilized for pre-mobilization training.

The Houses Lutherans Built Large groups of German immigrants began arriving in Cole County in the 1830s. By 1843, thirty-seven of them banded together to establish the first Lutheran church in the county--Zion Church. The following year, the second Lutheran church was founded near Taos, while the pastors at Zion helped establish a third congregation in Lohman in the 1850s. Doctrinal disputes inspired members to leave the church in Lohman and establish a new Lutheran congregation in Stringtown after the Civil War. Over the generations, Zion--the "Mother Church"--disbanded but other Lutheran congregations developed in Centertown, Honey Creek, Russellville, Jefferson City and near Brazito. Local author Jeremy Amick details the rich history of Lutherans in Cole County.

In the fall of 1944, with a number of battles unfolding throughout Europe and the Pacific, Roger Dean Buchta quietly entered the world at a time when the turmoil of World War II consumed newspaper headlines. Born on his family's farm near the rural German-Lutheran community of Lohman, Missouri, he graduated from Russellville High School in 1962, then choosing to continue his education at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. Finishing his bachelor's degree in the spring of 1966, he was soon snared by the draft and sent to Fort Hood, Texas for basic combat training. From there, he trained as a combat medic at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The Vietnam War was in full swing and Buchta was among thousands of troops deployed overseas. He arrived at a military base located near Qui Nhon, South Vietnam in October 1967, and, weeks later, transferred to the base at Cu Chi while attached to the 542nd Medical Company It was here that he experienced the Christmas miracle of the birth of Vietnamese twins. The hospital to which he was attached moved to a new base at Lai Khe, where, in late January 1968, the medic received his baptism by fire during the famed Tet Offensive. In the coming months, he witnessed the worst of humanity while treating a variety of patients, wounds and injuries. Following his discharge in late 1968, Buchta earned his master's degree and taught at Russellville High School for twenty-seven years. Thanks in part to detailed letters he wrote home before and during the war, this biography provides a clear depiction of his experiences in a combat zone and reveals insight to the quiet and reserved nature that came to define him in the years after the war.

The accounts described within Show-Me Veterans help to inspire an acknowledgment and appreciate of all veterans who have served Missouri and the United States. Many of these men and women voluntarily enlisted, oftentimes through the encouragement of a parent or loved one who served in the military. Others, perhaps, were drafted, thus being compelled into service but performing their assigned duties in an admirable fashion and without qualm or hesitation. These Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen, Coast Guardsmen and Merchant Marines - along with our Gold Star veterans who either came home under a flag-draped coffin or those whose remains were never recovered - all deserve the public's unwavering respect, for they are the pride of the Show-Me State. It is the author's intent that these stories - spanning the Civil War and carrying forth into more recent conflicts - encourage others to search within their own family circles and communities for forgotten military legacies that need to be resurrected and shared with future generations. No single work can, in any way, fully capture the bravery and highlight the sacrifices of our state's military heroes, but this compilation provides an introduction to the lives of the men and women who have gone forth into harm's way, preserving the freedoms that we have enjoyed since Missouri became the twenty-first state admitted to the Union in 1821.

Hank Stratman's life is one characterized by leadership opportunities. Coming of age during the Vietnam War and the Cold War in Europe, he attended college, deferring his military service and achieving an ROTC commission to grant himself some control over his fate if deployed to Vietnam. Cadet Stratman excelled at ROTC Summer Camp and qualified to lead Lincoln University's ROTC battalion in his senior year and, in December 1972, was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery. Married with one child and another on the way, he and his wife ventured into the uncertain military service world, confident - yet apprehensive about what they might encounter in the Army. The officer embraced many challenging assignments, earning the trust and confidence of his senior officers, who inspired him to remain in the Army. As a soldier, he made the transition from a tactical nuclear missile system to cannon artillery, served in Germany and South Korea during the Cold War, and was later selected for battalion command - a milestone achievement surpassed only by his unit's combat performance in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. In the years after the collapse of Yugoslavia, he serviced two peacekeeping missions in Bosnia. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he fulfilled key roles in the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan and establishment of the combat theater in the Middle East for Operation Iraqi Freedom. His final tour of duty was in Baghdad, serving with the U.S. Embassy to establish Iraq's governance. In 2006, he retired as a major general with three decades of military service, demonstrating that a farm boy from rural Vienna, Missouri, could take on the many diverse, global challenges and consistently succeed. HOOAH