“Here’s a picture of me,” Mathews says after flipping through pages of a yellow scrapbook and landing on the photo of a 19-year-old Navy machinist’s mate. “I was in World War II in two conflicts.”
The 97-year-old veteran talked about his service like it was yesterday.
“I was up in the Aleutian Islands, the Battle of Attu – Kiska and Attu and then I was in the Battle of Okinawa where I drove a duck,” Matthews says.
Matthews showed off the pictures outside Chelsea Place, a memory care community in Aurora, Colorado.
“The things that happened earliest in their lives are deeply engrained in who they are,” says Jenni Dill, life engagement director at Chelsea Place.
Dill works with Matthews and other residents who live with memory loss.
“In a lot of ways, I feel like I get to be the keeper of that history,” she says.
Read more: https://bit.ly/3lh34pU
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.