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It is ironic that Hal Strunk’s Honor Flight qualification came during his teenage years when he served in an Army artillery battery.
The longtime Pleasanton resident traveled to Washington, D.C., from Oct. 8-10 through the nonprofit Bay Area organization that takes groups of veterans on carefully planned trips to the nation’s capital and its variety of monuments. He enlisted in the Army when he was 15 and his 17-year-old buddies lied to the recruiter about his age. He served in an artillery battery that was never deployed.
Now, at 93, Strunk was a decade younger than the oldest trip participant, a 103-year-old vet who still walked most places. He could not say enough about the organizational skill of the team that planned and executed the trip that included a visit to the monument for women because they had a female veteran among the 25 participants.
After leaving early from San Francisco International Airport (reporting for the flight at 6 a.m.), they were up early on Friday so they could see the Vietnam Memorial before it got crowded. That attention to detail was typical of the trip.
Thinking of that time, Strunk said, “It just breaks your heart to see nearly 60,000 names, men and women, who never got to live a life like I did.”
Each veteran was accompanied by a guardian and there was a flight nurse on the plane in case of medical issues. All the vets’ expenses were covered, while the guardians paid their own way. Army vet Elizabeth Freitas, who met Strunk through Pleasanton veterans’ organizations, nominated him and served as his guardian. She shares his longtime Pleasanton home as a “foxhole buddy.”
For Strunk, the highlight was seeing the Korean monument with the statues wearing ponchos and carrying their standard-issue rifles while appropriately spread out so one mortar round did not take them all out.
The one firm appointment the group had was at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where the four oldest vets laid a wreath.
Dinner Friday night featured a surprise “mail call” where each vet received letters that organizers had solicited from friends and family. And, when they deplaned at San Francisco after the whirlwind trip a cheering crowd surprised them.
Strunk received the Honor Flight because of his service during the Korean War with a 105-millimeter howitzer battery. They were on call to be deployed to Korea, but the brass decided to send the 155-mm battery instead.
He moved on to Georgia Tech and joined the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He dropped out for a quarter before his senior year to work and marry Nancy Lou Patton. He was drafted in 1954, assigned to an engineering group presumably because he had studied civil engineering and then was discharged in 1956, ending his Army career. He and Nancy then moved to California in 1956 where he worked several jobs to finish an experimental psychology degree at Cal State Fullerton.
Strunk’s faculty adviser recommended graduate school at UCLA, but his grades were poor because studying came after attending classes and working to support his family. His adviser arranged for him to take the two necessary exams on the same day — he aced them both and was admitted to UCLA’s grad school. He proceeded to earn two master’s degrees and a doctorate in public health, which he achieved in five years.
The family moved north to the Bay Area, and he ended up running a medical care trade group that required him to organize its annual meeting for 11,000 physicians that included continuing education. It was held at the Anaheim Convention Center and he was going booth-to-booth thanking vendors for participating.
Lt. Joe Moran in the Navy booth engaged him and ended up offering a commission in the Navy. Strunk accepted and was assigned to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland (before it was closed and redeveloped) as a reservist.
That launched the family’s adventures to the Middle East when he saw an ad for Arabian Bechtel.
The Bechtel recruiter wanted him to visit at lunch hour and he did – wearing his Navy dress whites. They were off to Saudi Arabia in three weeks. He completed his two-year Bechtel commitment and then the Saudis made him an offer he could not refuse.
He was assigned as the administrator for the Saudi hospital in Dhahran before moving to Taif and a 365-bed military facility. For its part, the Navy transferred him to an intel unit in Brussels that he never had to visit. He noted that he kept a mailbox in Holland because the Saudi Post opens all mail.
His time in the Middle East allowed him to pursue his passion for scuba diving in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea for five years while he worked there. Among those highlights was a special trip prior to Desert Storm with a group of Seals. Their business concluded rapidly and Strunk was able to go diving with the Seals.
The Navy has a medical research unit in Cairo that he said he visited as often as possible to learn about regional diseases. He compiled his findings into the manual that still serves the military. He also traveled to Manilla in the Philippines on one leave to study tropical diseases. He pursued his epidemiology seriously.
On more than one occasion he was commandeered by a superior officer to serve as the medical officer for special assignments with the troops. When a Navy superior officer learned about Strunk, he made him the liaison officer to the Egyptian Army. He appreciated the Egyptians who were trained by the British because they would stop for tea in the afternoon — unrolling catalogue netting and firing up the stoves.
He spent seven years with U.S. Central Command and was called up for Desert Storm under Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf. The medical planning included three 500-bed field hospitals and two 1,000-bed hospital ships. A few weeks before, he and a team of senior officers had spent two weeks locked up at a Florida base developing a plan to fight the Iraqis.
Iraq invaded Kuwait and their plan was the basis for Desert Storm led by Gen. Schwartzkopf. The war ended in a rout and minimal U.S. casualties.
To say Strunk left with minimal notice is a huge understatement. He got a call in his office at 8 a.m. telling him that he was being recalled and to report to Treasure Island immediately. By 10 a.m. he had a new ID card and airplane tickets the next day.
His job was with Blue Shield as liaison to many Northern California hospitals. He became very popular with the troops because those facilities sent plenty of “care boxes” that he freely shared.
He finished his career working with the office for chemical and biological defense to develop a way to identify weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in a combat environment. He retired at the rank of captain at age 61 after five years in the Army and 17 in the Navy.
Strunk remains active in veterans’ groups to this day, typically accompanied by Freitas who works full-time as a health coach.
Interesting note on Hal Strunk
* When Bechtel recruited Strunk, they required copies of his degrees. They were signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan, who by then had been elected president.
* While in the Philippines he flew in the backseat of an A4 – having earlier qualified for an ejection, if necessary, at Lemore Naval Base in the Central Valley.
* The avid scuba diver also wore the Navy’s heavy-duty diving outfit designed to greater depths simply because he wanted to experience it. He led the scuba diving club while in Saudi Arabia.
* While passing out poppies in honor of Veterans Day in his Veterans of Foreign Wars uniform, he engaged in conversation with a man who turned out to be a retired Hawaiian Air Lines pilot. He flew the charter that carried Strunk and others when they were called up for Desert Storm.
* Strunk is a prolific writer about military history and has spoken regularly sharing his knowledge with groups over many years. His speeches and writing were compiled in 2022 into “The Complete Anthology of Short Stories And Speeches” that is available on Amazon. It totals 556 pages in hard cover and is also available for Kindle and in paperback.
More on Honor Flight
Honor Flight is partnered with the Danville-based Wheelchair Foundation that provides wheelchairs for all vets on the flight. The foundation made a video on YouTube explaining the program.
