CORTEZ – Cortezians have a long history of serving in the military and that service was recognized during a Veterans Day commemoration on Nov. 10 at the Cortez Cultural Center.
Members of the Cortez Village Historical Society (CVHS) and friends met at the center for an informal coffee gathering and Veterans Day tribute.
“Today is really special. We’re here to acknowledge and honor our veterans and their service to the defense of our nation,” CVHS Vice President Paul Dryfoos said. “Cortez has a very strong tradition of national service, and many Cortez families have sent family members off to World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Middle East; generation after generation of service.”
Dryfoos noted that CVHS is an historic organization.
“I wanted to point out our veterans wall, which has an honor roll for the first and second World Wars,” he said. “There is some really great memorabilia, including one of the uniforms which I understand belonged to a member of the Adams family.”
He then told the story of the Adams family, six brothers from Cortez who served during World War II, and were recognized in 1988 by the late Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, who added a tribute to the brothers in the Congressional Record.
Dryfoos read some of Chiles’ narrative during the tribute: “Mr. President, I would like to pay tribute today to the Adams family of Cortez, Florida. The reason I am calling attention to this one native Florida family is because all six of the brothers, William, Leon, Willis, Cleveland, Henry and Clyde, served overseas in the U.S. armed services at the same time during World War II.”
“Think about it,” Dryfoos said. “Six brothers serving very much on the front lines at the same time.”
Dryfoos told the stories of two of the brothers.
“Willis Howard Adams, who’s known as Snooks, he was the third son, he was the first one to enlist,” he said. “He enlisted in the Navy in 1941 and had a total of seven battle stars awarded on the various ships on which he served. After the war, Snooks returned to Cortez and went back into the family fishing business. Ultimately he went into a career in law enforcement, and was with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Department and was chief of police of Holmes Beach.”
“His brother Clyde, the youngest brother, joined the Army Air Force in 1942 and he flew 15 combat missions, but he was shot down on his 15th mission,” Dryfoos said. “He spent a year in a German POW camp and then he came back to Cortez. He re-enlisted and flew 15 more missions in the Korean War. This is the kind of grit and determination that we all know sons and daughters of Cortez have had through history.”
Longtime Cortez resident Carol Kio-Green reflected on the service of Cortez residents during World War II.
“There were at least 67 members of Cortez who served,” she said. “In a community with a population of around 500, that’s over 10% of the population left to go into service. That was a substantial loss of the people who were fishing.
“My mother used to say she had 20 first cousins in the service and she never bothered to sit and count the second cousins and cousins once removed; it was a huge number for such a small community,” Kio-Green said.
Ardeth Black spoke about her husband, Greg, a Vietnam veteran.
“He was shot in the leg in a swamp mission. He is surviving under the effects of Agent Orange and is doing his best,” she said. “In honor of Greg, I’m going to make a donation to the Cultural Center. I would encourage others to do the same. It’s for Greg and the Vietnam vets.”
“My dad was lieutenant commander in the Navy on the USS Enterprise, and he got shot down overseas,” Sharon Otis said. “When you see the movies, that’s him. We knew the stories were going to die with him, because you know they won’t talk about it. My son got a lot of information before he died in ‘94.”
Allen Garner grew up in Cortez and knew the men who had served in World War II, including his father.
“It was basically every young man in Cortez,” Garner said. “The one thing I know about all those guys was they’d always share the funny stories and the interesting things that happened. None of them liked to talk about the dark side of the war.”
Joe Egolf, a veteran, said, “The appropriate response when someone says, ‘Thank you for your service’ is, ‘You were worth it.’ ”
