St. Peters Veterans Day Restores Faith and Rediscovers Heroes

St. Peters  Ward 3 Councilman Tommy Roberts told the crowd at the St. Peters Veterans Day ceremony he didn’t know about his own father’s achievements during the Vietnam War until after he died.

“My dad was very humble about his experience in the war,” Roberts said.

But he always told Roberts that he wanted to be buried “with his brothers” in Jefferson Barracks when he died.

After he died a few years ago, Roberts gathered documentation on his military career to get permission for a burial at the military gravesite. It was then he learned his father had earned Silver Stars and Bronze Stars for his service.

“I found out my dad was a hero,” he said.

The St. Peters Veterans Memorial Commission hosted the Friday event Veterans Memorial outside City Hall. About 150 people attended the ceremony.

Main speaker Capt. Robert Karle Panke, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot and Vietnam War veteran, talked about helping to make recommendations on West Point applications.

Panke, a St. Peters business owner, recalled one application a few years ago in which an 18-year-old wrote a letter describing why he wanted to attend West Point.

In a letter with the application, the young man said when he was 6 years old, he would look at the medals and ribbons earned by his grandfathers and his father, but they were nothing more than colors and shapes.

As he got older, he learned the medals names and places where they were earned, such as the battles of Normandy, Inchon and Caisson.

Panke said the young man wrote:

“When I was 18 years old, the ribbons and medals suddenly became part of my family heritage, and therefore a part of me. It became my connection to a long line of family members who struggled for freedom and who make this country great. It became my dad’s wingman and roommate, who never returned from one flight.”

The young man ended the letter by writing, “For me, the question of West Point was not an if, but a when.”

Panke, who flew more than 300 combat missions in an F-4 in Vietnam, said the young man was accepted to West Point, but there was a lasting, enduring lesson in there.

“If an 18-year-old kid can write a letter like that, you have to have a lot of faith in the future of this country,” Panke said.