"You carry it with you"
Gus VanderVeen knows a thing or two about service. A Vietnam-era veteran, Gus’s life journey has been shaped by duty, devotion, and a deep-rooted faith.
He speaks of his military service with quiet humility. “It changes you,” he says. “You carry it with you.” And that impact, while challenging to sum up in a single sentence, shows in the way Gus lives, with gratitude, reflection, and an enduring sense of purpose.
One of his most powerful memories was participating in an Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., a profoundly moving experience that still evokes strong emotions when he recounts it. The flight began with a water cannon salute in Grand Rapids and another upon landing in Baltimore. Veterans were seated by age, with the oldest receiving first-class treatment. His guardian for the journey? His eldest son.
The trip itself was packed. They began at Fort McHenry, where the Star-Spangled Banner was first inspired, walking through old fortifications and standing beside historic cannons. The group visited the World War II Museum, had a group dinner, and stayed in a hotel so close to the city center that, later, during a museum visit, Gus could see the Pentagon. At the Pentagon, he asked a docent about the 9/11 crash site and was shown the lighter brick on one side of the building—the visible scar where the plane had hit. “Behind us was a hotel,” he recalled. “They said the plane came in so low, it took the radio towers off the top before hitting the Pentagon.” That moment, like many others, stayed with him.
But it was Arlington National Cemetery that truly took his breath away. “As far as the eye can see, there’s nothing but crosses,” Gus said. The solemn rows of headstones reminded him of a trip to France in 2014, where he visited his brother-in-law’s grave. He walked between the crosses and marked the spot with reverence. “It’s hallowed ground,” he said.
“What impressed me most,” Gus says, “was the Changing of the Guard and the Vietnam Wall. I lost a friend of the family in Vietnam when he was still a teenager. I did a rubbing of his name.” When Gus stood back from the Wall, when he couldn’t read the names anymore, he could see the faces of the people lost.
Coincidentally, or perhaps providentially, on the same day Gus made that rubbing, the young man’s mother passed away at age 99. Gus had a framed copy of the rubbing and a photo of the wall delivered to the family. “It felt like something I was meant to do,” he says.
Gus also visited his brother-in-law’s grave in France and speaks with reverence about the “adoption programs” at overseas military cemeteries. “Every grave is adopted by a local family,” he explains. “If there’s a photo of the soldier, it’s placed on the mantel in their home. That person becomes part of their family.”
Gus’s own family spans across the U.S. with four children living in Wisconsin, Florida, and northern Michigan. His wife, who passed away after a long battle with an autoimmune disease, had been his partner in every sense. They had planned to move to Royal Park Place together, a community they’d known for decades, thanks to his mother-in-law, one of the first residents, who had moved in back in 1990.
“My wife’s health declined, and she needed Memory Care. Unfortunately, she wasn’t there long; she passed shortly after moving in.” His voice softens. “She’d been through so much.”
Now living in a bright apartment, Gus finds comfort in connection. “It’s the camaraderie,” he says. “We laugh every morning at the breakfast table. It’s a good way to start the day.”
Royal Park Place wasn’t just a convenient choice; it was a familiar one. Friends from church live here. Friends from church live here, and a childhood friend is now his neighbor once again. “After 80 years, we’re sitting next to each other again.”
Gus speaks with affection for the community’s faith-filled atmosphere and the little joys that still surprise him: a shared memory, a quiet breakfast, the ducks outside his window.
“Life changes, but you find meaning again,” he says. “You just have to know where to look.”
