Military Para-Jumper Learned a Lesson about Respect
Even though it’s been more than 50 years, Joe Hawkins still remembers his first jump as a member of the 11th Airborne Division, a United States Army airborne formation.
“I went through all the motions and was ready at the door. Then I had this thought: I shouldn’t jump out of a perfectly good airplane,” he explained. “I looked at the Sergeant and said, ‘Can you let me out?’ He replied, ‘Don’t worry about a thing, Kid’ and there I went.”
Joe joined the Army when he was 17 years old and stayed enlisted for three years. Following basic training, Joe attended schooling to learn how jump out of planes. They practiced using tall towers to learn proper methods of landing to prevent injuries.
Joe and his fellow paratroopers sometimes had long periods of time between their jumps. The first jump back was always a little shaky for Joe.
“The more you jump, the more you got used to it and the easier it was,” he said.
While in the military, Joe was stationed in Germany and learned a lesson about respect.
“They taught us, ‘Even if you don’t like the officer, respect the rank.’ That was good enough for me,” he said.
After his time in the military, Joe moved to Minnesota and worked in construction. He now resides in the Special Care Residence at The Lutheran Home: Belle Plaine.
“There are a lot of good people here. They try to get us out of our rooms as much as they can and that’s a good thing. We have lots of activities here,” Joe said.
Joe is only one of 80 veterans currently residing in a TLHA care community. In our 120th year of caring for souls, we are honoring both our veteran residents and team members. Our history begins with one family’s loss during the Civil War. A 15-year-old Ernst Boessling from Belle Plaine volunteered to serve with the Minnesota troops. He died in September of 1863 in service to his country at Vicksburg, Mississippi.
His mother, Sophie, had saved the government death benefits she received all the years after Ernst died. Wanting to provide a home for others like herself, she donated the money and her family’s farmland to build das Alten und Waisenheim—the Aged and Orphans’ Home. Now more than a century later, Sophie’s gift continues to benefit countless lives.
TLHA has active senior living, assisted living and memory care communities in Belle Plaine and Mankato, Minnesota, and River Falls, Fountain City, and Watertown, Wisconsin. Looking for a place to call home? Visit www.tlha.org/communities.