Episcopal church honors two oldest Elmore County vets

The Veterans Day program at Trinity Episcopal Church  in Wetumpka was a little different this year.

There was the usual patriotic music and honoring of all veterans present. But instead of highlighting one veteran for their service, two were honored. Carl Edwards, 99, and James Dozier, 98, were highlighted in the program and presented with U.S. Flags in a ceremony retired U.S. Army CW4 Gardner Perdue has only done once before.

“We presented them with their casket flags,” Perdue said. “They not only received it tonight but the family will use it at their funeral. To our knowledge, these are the two oldest veterans in Elmore County.”

Perdue said the flags are inscribed with Nov. 11, 2023 on them and the family will inscribe them again at the death of the veterans.

Perdue has a long history with the military, and before his retirement, he aided veterans with various services including providing families with flags for burial. Perdue said he has given one such flag for the same purpose before. It was for Walton Whetstone when he was 100.

“I presented it to him one year,” Perdue said. “He died about a year later.”

The families of Edwards and Dozier are already taking care of the flags. They have already acquired the triangular boxes flags are displayed in.

The two senior veterans were honored alongside all other veterans in attendance. The program featured the Christian Community Band with vocalist and musicians and the group Belle Fleurs. After the program the veterans shared some of their stories with guests in the Gallery of Honor in the church’s original chapel.

Holtville native joined WWII effort at 17

Edwards was 17 when he joined the Navy. The student was not drafted, but felt a calling as he was walking.

“I was going down the street and there as a sign that said ‘I want you!’” Edwards recalled.

“I said ‘Here I am.’ I went in and joined.”

Edwards left Elmore County and went to San Diego for bootcamp and boarded the U.S.S. Sepulga Aug. 12, 1942. He would be on board the Sepulga for 25 months sailing all through the south Pacific. Aboard the U.S.S. Holder, Edwards sailed to Europe and the Mediterranean Sea.

The Holtville native was married to his bride Betty for 69 years before she died.

Edwards returned to Holtville to finish high school.

“I was older than the football coach,” Edwards said. “He was like 21.”

The younger coach gave Edwards a little break, seeing he was a veteran.

“I was the oldest on the team,” Edwards said. “Coach asked one day if I was coming to practice. I said, ‘No, I’m going fishing.’ He said, ‘Don’t take nobody with you because we won’t have enough to play.’”

Edwards attended what is now Auburn University, but was soon recalled for the Korean War. He was to report in Georgia but didn’t go alone. Edwards’ wife Betty joined him as did seven others for the trip in their Nash automobile. 

“There were four of us up front,” Edwards said. “My wife was to my left as I drove and two others were to my right. There were four more in the back seat and one in the trunk.”

Edwards said the group stopped at a truck stop along the way to get something to eat. 

“The lady waiting on us saw all of us get out,” Edwards said. “She made a comment that the bus had arrived early that night.”

The group of nine carried on and stopped again for gas but noticed a problem.

“We found out we had so much weight in the car that it had scraped the gas tank and punctured a hole in the tank,” Edwards said. “The guy at the service station took a stick and rag and hammered it up in the hole.”

The tank was filled and the sailors reported for duty.

After the Navy, Edwards was a civil service employee at Maxwell Air Force Base retiring as a master sergeant.

He said his mother lived to be 99 and credited his long life to one thing.

“The secret is the Lord,” Edwards said. “He has been good to me.”

Wetumpka native was drafted into the Army

James Dozier outran the mail after the Army sent him a letter he had to serve.

Dozier met his bride in the 9th grade. 

“I remember asking her on a date but I don’t remember where,” Dozier said. “The rest is history.”

They were married for 77 years.

Dozier knew the couple were pregnant when he deployed from Camp Kilmer, New Jersey as part of the 538th Field Artillery Battalion. Bad luck struck Dozier and about 3,000 other soldiers on the boat they were using to cross the Atlantic to Le Havre, France. They slowly crossed the ocean being left behind by the other 33 ships in the convoy arriving in England some two weeks late. Dozier and the other soldiers boarded an English ship for the short journey across the English Channel. 

“We fought halfway across France,” Dozier said. “We went across the Rhine River into Germany.”

Dozier recalled pulling the cord on the big 240 mm artillery gun his unit was using firing projectiles weighing more than 500 pounds.

“We always joked that when they saw the 538th, they gave up,” Dozier said. “They gave up right after we crossed into Germany.”

It was near the end of the battle of the Battle of the Bulge Dozier received a letter from his brother informing him of the birth of his child.

“He said he stopped by the hospital to check on my wife and said they were both fine,” Dozier said. “That is all he said. I didn’t know if it was a son or daughter or when.”

Three and half months later, Dozier’s mail bag caught up to him. In it was the Red Cross letter informing of the birth of his first daughter Mary Roberts. It also included a photo of the infant.

The bag also had 103 letters from his wife Ovelle Eminger Dozier. 

“When I got mail, it was in a tall mailbag. It was full,” Dozier said. “She wrote every night. I got three months at one time. The mail didn’t catch up with me.”

Dozier’s wife held down the front in Wetumpka, showing Mary Roberts a photograph of her father everyday. When Dozier came home, something magical happened.