Veterans who have protected Americans by serving overseas are also the best that America has to offer when it comes to the nation’s heart, character and values.
A poignant case in point is Bob Karlstrand, a 65-year-old Vietnam veteran from Maple Grove, Minnesota, who coordinated B-52 bombers during his time in service. (That’s him above, in the photo on this page.)
Karlstrand has been busy for the past year or so giving away almost everything he owns. He has colon cancer and a terminal lung disease — and wishes to give it all away before he passes.
Karlstrand never married and never had children, so his beneficiaries are family, friends and grateful Minnesotans. Another veteran will receive his home, and the University of Minnesota’s nursing program will receive a $1-million endowment for its nursing school, the sum of Karlstrand’s retirement fund. He is a graduate of the university’s business school, and later worked in the insurance field.
The large gift to the University of Minnesota’s nursing program will allow six scholarships this year, with more to come.
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Board games, furniture, home appliances, books and other items gathered over the course of a lifetime have been taken away to be used and enjoyed by others. Even the living room rug has been stripped from the floor.
“I have no family, so everything I own would have to go somewhere. Like they say, ‘You can’t take it with you,'” Karlstrand told The Military Times. “I was hoping I could do all of this a little later, but it is not going to work that way.
“Some things that were owned by my grandparents were given to cousins,” he added. “Some possessions were given to friends. I tried to find a good home for the things that meant the most to me. The rest — like household goods, furniture — were donated to charities that would be able to reuse them.”
Karlstrand moved out of his home last May, and since then Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity has been busy rehabbing it for its next family. It will then fulfill his one stipulation for the donation — that the home he has lived in for 39 years be given to a fellow veteran who needs it.
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“Bob contacted us when he realized his health issues were going to prevent him from staying in his home for too much longer,” Matt Haugen, a spokesperson for the Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, told LifeZette. “We began a veterans’ initiative a few years ago that helps veterans with home ownership, home repairs, and also gives veterans in our area volunteer opportunities. Lots of times veterans come home and still have that wish to serve others.”
Karlstrand’s requirement was met in Bonita Rayna-Berg, a younger Army veteran who is raising her teenage grandson and is wheelchair-bound due to a spinal cord injury.
Karlstrand and Reyna-Berg were able to meet face-to-face in December, and Rayna-Berg was touched by her fellow veteran’s generosity. “He’s touched my life and made such an impact and a difference in my life,” Reyna-Berg told Kare11.com.
Her own apartment was quickly becoming unmanageable. “We’re crowded, he can’t get around me,” she said of her grandson. “My wheelchair is in the way.”
Sue Haigh, president and CEO of Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, told LifeZette, “The opportunity to work with a humble, generous man like Bob has been just amazing. He is determined to use what he has to benefit others. Any time we can assist people into homes we do so. Studies show that families in stable homes are healthier, and their children have better grades, better study habits, and improved quality of life, too.”
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American Legion national spokesman John Raughter understands the gift from one veteran to another.
“The bond that veterans have transcends war and transcends branches of service,” he told LifeZette.
“Veterans understand other veterans. Oftentimes, the first people to welcome back our servicemen and women from Afghanistan are veterans of the World Wars. The American Legion constitution, which was written in World War I and reads in part, ‘To preserve the memories and incidents of our associations in the Great Wars,’ has only had one word changed in all those years — from ‘war,’ to ‘wars,’” he notes.
Karlstrand has moved to an apartment in Mound, Minnesota.
“They have an assisted living nursing home. Everything is all in one building,” he told KARE11.com.
A man of measured words, Karlstrand said of his gift to Reyna-Berg, “I hope she likes it. I think she will.”
Haugen of Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity says, “Bob is truly an amazing person. What we want for him is a long time at the nice community on a lake where he lives now, and we wish just the best for him.”
Karlstrand seems to have the wish of leaving this earth by giving everything he had in this life to those who can use it to make their own lives better. You could say that in his lifetime and beyond it, Karlstrand never stopped serving his fellow Americans.
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