Veteran Salute: Serving fellow servicemembers across Army instillations

TOPEKA (KSNT) - Serving over two decades with the military, Staff Sergeant E6 Larry Perry worked diligently to protect fellow servicemembers and lend a helping and wherever it was needed.

Growing up in St. Marys, Perry joined up with the military right after high school.

"I was 18 at that time they were drafting, so I joined the guards," Perry said.

With the military, Perry would serve across Army instillations like Fort Riley and Fort Carson in Colorado.

"I pulled medical support for tanks, the infantry, scouts, wherever they needed us," he said. "I did it for a long time."

For that long time of 22 1/2 years, Larry had to be ready for anything.

"We had a driver and just two medics," he said. "We had all the supplies we needed, but it was a different situation back then. We didn't have the stuff they got now back then. We had stuff, but we didn't have all the big packs and everything in it. So, it was an experience."

That experience had its share of ups and downs over the decades.

"Fort Riley one week we got hot," Perry said. "Hot hot. We had guys passing out like you wouldn't believe, heat exhaustion. I had to call medevac in, we had to send 5 of them that was going into heat stroke. We had a water buffalo, it was full of water, we took it and just put the cold water to bring the fever down."

After his time in the military came to an end, Perry put his mechanics training to good use, working at Goodyear in Topeka for 25 years.