We landed in Nurnberg (Nuremberg) late at night. It was near the very last of November. The year — 1959.

Taken to a U.S. Army post there, we were billeted for the night. Our journey from Fort Knox, Kentucky, via Dover, Delaware, to Gander, Newfoundland, then Shannon, Ireland, and finally Nuremberg, was exciting but exhausting. We had traveled in a four prop plane. Not a jet. The entire trip took over 24 hours.

Three or four of us assigned to the 3rd Battalion of the 11th Armored Cavalry, in Regensburg, Germany, were taken there in late afternoon, Sunday. We had overslept, and evidently no one in the barracks knew there were in-transit soldiers in our room.

And so began my 29 months with Uncle Sam in the Fatherland.

In January of ’60 someone in my unit, if my murky memory serves, mentioned the choir at the post chapel. Having been an active choir member of my church here while in high school, I thought I’d check it out.

Best decision I could possibly have ever made. Being a part of that ministry, albeit a very small part, was my spiritual and social (the fellowship) anchor during all the long days and weeks and months I was away from home, and all that I had left behind.

Chaplain Warren H. Withrow and his wife Carol were very important, in ways they didn’t even know, to soldiers — especially in the lowest ranks — such as I.

Friendships I made through the Chapel activities, and in my part-time hours spent with the American Youth Activities (AYA) program, sustained me, and to this very day I look back upon those times with great gratitude. Such sweet memories make me very emotional at times.

Chaplain Withrow, a World War II veteran, was much admired, liked, and respected. He received his final promotion in 1993. The Lord he served called him home.

And Carol. My goodness, what a woman! A Renaissance woman.

Beyond the age when most have sought their education, she returned to school at age 47, and earned her registered nursing degree. She then went on to the University of Louisville to earn her BSN degree, while teaching in the same school where she began her educational journey.

She retired in 1993. But she certainly didn’t retire. Hardly. She continued to teach; and to practice nursing all over the world. In Ghana. In India. In China. In Appalachia.

All of her travels weren’t centered just around her work, however. She spent ten days in Paris (France, that is) for her grandson’s wedding; has been to Australia and New Zealand – where she bungee jumped off a 123-foot bridge. She has skydived out of a perfectly good airplane, visited the Taj Mahal in New Delhi, done the Hawaiian vacation thing, crossed the Panama Canal, gone para-sailing in Costa Rica, and spent a chilly night in Lapland, where she slept in a sleeping bag on a bed made of ice in a hotel made of ice, with the thermostat set at a “brisk 24 degrees below zero.”

And space constraints don’t allow for the telling of her stateside adventures.

Carol Withrow. The girl from Minnesota, chaplain’s wife, mother, grandmother, health care professional, adventuress, a devout Christian woman.

The lives she has touched. The life-saving vaccinations she has given. The words of hope and inspiration she has shared. The adventures she has experienced.

And, this past August this quintessential Renaissance woman observed a personal milestone: her 90th birthday.

She looks forward to each new day, but also has joyful anticipation of her reunion with Warren (“Dad”), and their daughter Elliene. There they will spend eternity.

At various times Carol has been described, by friends and colleagues, as “inspiring,” “encouraging,” “dynamic,” “caring,” “adventurous,” and “unforgettable.” All true.

I am so very, very glad that I went to that first choir practice all those many, many years ago.

Oh, she had a lovely voice, too. We even did a duet in church once.

We were pretty good.