Leonard Kaderka is doing what he can to make sure a piece of history is not forgotten.
The former Navy serviceman brought a wooden box that memorializes a soldier that died in World War II to the Veterans Day breakfast at American Legion Graham D. Luhn Post 39 Saturday, Nov. 11.
The fallen soldier is Sidney Pierce, who died Dec. 7, 1941 in the Pearl Harbor attack. Pierce was a third-class radioman for the Navy and a graduate of Taylor High School.
Inside of the box contained the soldier’s flag, a Navy background and newspaper clippings. Kaderka built the wooden frame himself.
“Being in the service, one of these days I’m probably going to have a flag,” Kaderka said. “And sometimes I wonder what will happen to it. It means a lot to me when I can do something for a serviceman who lost his life for our country.”
Pierce was Taylor’s first casualty of the war. The flag that now rests in the wooden box honoring Pierce was flown on a pole mounted to the U.S.S. Arizona battleship May 25, 2009.
Kaderka said he was recommended to Pierce’s relatives as someone who could frame the flag about a year after. He built the frame in about a day.
Leonard Kaderka poses with the wooden box, which contains items memorializing former Navy serviceman Sidney Pierce. Photo by Hunter Dworaczyk
“This flag being flown over the Arizona to me is (an honor),” Kaderka said. “I mean I held it in my hands to put it in there. Like I said, it was an honor for me to do this.”
Kaderka said he does not charge a fee to make memorial items like this.
Since then, he said the item has belonged in what used to be the Veterans of Foreign Wars building, the Duck Hall of Fame at the old high school and was briefly in the Moody Museum.
Kaderka said Veterans Day is similar to Memorial Day for him, with it also serving as a chance to honor people who were killed in service. That’s why it made sense for him to bring the wooden box to the American Legion breakfast.
“I’m pushing 80 years old,” Kaderka said. “I don’t know how many other chances I would have. If I wasn’t here, who would do this for a breakfast with all these people here?”
Kaderka said he planned to go to the Georgetown service for veterans and hoped to take the wooden box there.
Afterwards, he said it will be brought back to the Duck Hall of Fame.
Kaderka said he has probably made hundreds of frames and flag cases for relatives and other veterans over the years.
