Veterans Day is Saturday, November 11. With the official end of World War II now nearly 80 years behind us, KSBY spoke to a few local WWII veterans, as most are now 100 years old or nearing the century mark.
Meet Paso Robles WWII veteran Warren Juhnke.
“I was just 18, which is why I look so young,” said Warren Juhnke holding one of his first official military photos from 1945.
While Warren enlisted at the age of 18, he's still young at heart now at nearly 98.
Warren served in World War II as a cryptographer. Now, he lives in a retirement community in Paso Robles.
“There’s a picture of me at the age of 20 when I came back from overseas up on the wall. Next to it is a picture of today,” Warren explained.
KSBY’s Neil Hebert asked him whether that made him prideful.
“It does. And I don't hesitate to show it to guests that may come,” he responded.
During his time overseas, Warren was fortunate to travel.
“I got to see much of the African continent all the way from Dakar, which is on the western point of Africa, all the way around to Cairo,” Warren said of his travels.
Following the military, he went into education and became an administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Like many veterans, opening up about his time in the service happened many years later. In Warren’s case, it was nearly half a century later when he and his late wife started writing a memoir.
“I knew he'd been in North Africa, and I knew that he'd done cryptography. I didn't really know much more than that,” said David Juhnke, Warren’s son. “Occasionall,y we'd get a story out of him, and sometimes those stories got embellished by the kids.”
“But you’re not going to tell the tangerine story,” Warren said to his son with a laugh.
The tangerine story can wait for another day, but the reason Warren enlisted in the military is one we all know.
“I was a sophomore in high school when Pearl Harbor was attacked. My mother and dad and I lived a block from North Hollywood Park,” Warren said. “Shortly after Pearl Harbor occurred, 2,000 members of the Minnesota National Guard were bivouac in the park to defend the San Fernando Valley.”
He said he couldn’t wait to come of age and join the military ranks to defend his country.
“Growing up, you always hear about the Greatest Generation, and they really were the Greatest Generation. The more you find out about the history and what the World War II vets went through for the country, for the people that live here, for the next generations to come, it's very special,” David said. “I'm very proud of my dad.”
