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Von Leroy Blunt
Von Leroy Blunt
Von Leroy Blunt

The military career of Von Leroy Blunt

By Dan Ellis | AFRH-G Resident

Von was born to Clyde and Olive Blunt on July 11, 1937 in Everly, Iowa. His early life was on the Blunt farm where crops consisted primarily of corn and oats. He attended a one-room schoolhouse for grades one and two and not having electricity, cold days were warmed by a pot-bellied stove. The family moved to Terril, Iowa and another farm. Von attended classes at Terril Consolidated School until graduation in 1955. Besides home and farm chores for pocket money, Von worked part-time setting pins at a bowling alley. After attending two years at the University of Iowa in Iowa City majoring in media broadcasting, Von took a break and worked at a lodging facility renting out weekly cabins in Yellowstone Park.

Von enlisted with the U.S. Air Force on October 15, 1958 and took basic training at Lackland AFB, Texas before being transferred to McConnell AFB, Kansas. He was then transferred to Ankara, Turkey during the summer of 1960 as a service club manager; and then transferred to Miles City AFS, Montana in 1961 where he was raised to sergeant grade. Many of his duty tours had to do with his classification in recreation and service club management. Von re-enlisted in October 1962 and in 1963, was enrolled in an Army operated Radio/TV Broadcasting School in New York which started him in a new classification path. He was then transferred to Kunsan AB, Korea in March 1964 where he was the radio broadcasting station manager. He was then transferred to Germany for three years working at the Armed Forces Radio and Television network in Wiesbaden, Germany and was reassigned to the Armed Forces Television headquarters in Hollywood, California becoming a global media programming director.

In 1969, he went to Thailand and worked as a radio/television station manager and spent a year there at U-Tapao AB and Ubon AB before returning in 1970, to Great Falls, Montana in Public Affairs with the 24th Air Division. In 1971, he applied for the recruiting school in Lackland, Texas, and was sent to Des Moines, Iowa as head of advertising and publicity for recruiting services for the state of Iowa.  There he was raised to the rank of master sergeant. With the phasing out of the Des Moines detachment, Von was transferred to Waterloo, Iowa in 1976 as a recruiter/supervisor and in 1978, he took his retirement from the Air Force and continued to live outside of Denver, Iowa.

After service departure Von worked for the Iowa state liquor department for a couple years, got his pilot’s license and then joined the Schumacher Elevator Company as salesman and pilot in 1981 and then retired in 1999. He also served as an EMT for eight years and then became a Medicare Counselor for Waverly Health Center in Waverly, Iowa.

Von’s first marriage in 1959 produced a daughter, Vicky. While living in Des Moines, Von married a second time to a Korean woman named Sue, who had two boys.  One of his stepsons lives in Hawaii and the other in Waverly, Iowa. His wife, Sue, passed away in 2017. Von is a grandfather to six grandchildren.

Von moved to AFRH-G on October 15, 2018, and has never stopped working. He holds a number of volunteer positions including: meal ticket sales, security desk back-up, administrative desk clerk, and new resident sponsor.