John Ellis, left, and James Kuehler enjoy the camaraderie at Norwalk's American Legion. Ellis is a World War II veteran, and Kuehler is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

Photo Credit: Nancy Chapman

Leo Motyka is a past commander of American Legion Post 12 and is the link between the post and political officials.

Photo Credit: Nancy Chapman

Bob Forbis loads a flag for Friday's ceremony into his car. Forbis is from North Carolina but lived in Stamford for 50 years, after meeting his future wife while serving as a military policeman there.

Photo Credit: Nancy Chapman

NORWALK, Conn. – John Ellis and James Kuehler spend a fair amount of time together, but Friday they will go their separate ways. Ellis, a World War II veteran, will be at City Hall. Kuehler will head for Briggs High School to share memories of the war in Afghanistan with students.

Norwalk's annual Veterans Day ceremony is of great importance to the men at American Legion Post 12, where Ellis is the former chairman of the house committee and Kuehler tends bar. Conversation among the eight former servicemen sitting inside late Thursday afternoon touched on it again and again. Most plan to attend and then welcome the public for an open house afterward at the Legion.

Ellis has been in the Legion for 50 years. As a member of the U.S. Navy, he served "all over the Pacific. But where they shot at me was Peleliu." The battle occurred in 1944 and "had the highest casualty rate of any amphibious invasion in terms of men and material in the entire war in the Pacific," according to MilitaryHistoryOnline.

To his right at the bar was John Sullivan, who keeps a photo of Honest John in his wallet. The missile was a "nuclear weapon that would have closed the Fulda Gap," he said. Sullivan served in Germany during the Cold War, from 1960 to 1962. "I spent a lot of time with that thing," he said, adding that he and his fellow soldiers would have been vaporized if the missile had ever been used. The power of the weapon kept Russia from attacking, he said. "Germany would still be glowing in the dark" if it had ever been fired.

Leo Motyka, a Korean War veteran, sat next to Sullivan. "Korea was the coldest place in the world during the winter and the hottest place in the world in the summer," he said. "I'd like to tell you what it smelled like but you couldn't print it." Korea was mountainous and at the time had few trees. He doesn't know what it is like now.

"If you ask me if I was glad to serve I'd say yes," he said. "If you ask me if I want to do it again I'd say no."

Stanley Osakowicz manned tanks in Vietnam from 1969 to 1972 as a member of the U.S. Army. Now he is in a veterans honor guard as a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 603. The post meets at the American Legion now, as does the Marine Corps League.

Motyka is past commander of the American Legion, chairman of the house committee and is on the National Legislative Commission of the American Legion. His grandchildren volunteered him to speak at Wilton's Cider Mill School on Friday, but then it's on to Norwalk City Hall. Sullivan, the Legion post's finance officer for 30 years, and Ellis will be there, but Osakowicz has to work.

Their bartender will be at Briggs, where students will watch "Restrepo," a feature-length documentary that focuses on a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. Afterward, they will quiz Kuehler.

He served the U.S. Army, "the only branch that matters," and left Afghanistan more than a year ago. Kuehler was on the police mentoring team there and traveled all over the country but spent most of his time in Khwost, near the Pakistani border. Now he uses his veteran's benefits to study at Norwalk Community College and hopes to get into medicine.

Norwalk's Veterans Day observance will begin at 9:30 a.m. in Concert Hall with an hourlong musical performance. Norwalk High School ROTC members will participate in the ceremony that begins at 10:30 a.m.