By MELANIE POOLE / Special to the Reporter

The Veteran of the Week is sponsored by the National Veterans Shrine and Register of Honor at the American Village — honoring America’s veterans and telling the stories of their service and sacrifice for the cause of liberty.

“The American Village is pleased to join the Shelby County Reporter in recognizing Glenn L. Calhoun as Veteran of the Week,” American Village founder and CEO Tom Walker said. “He is representative of the hundreds of thousands of Alabamians who have risked it all for the sake of our country and its freedom. To all veterans we owe a debt we can never fully repay.”

Visit the website, Veteransregisterofhonor.com, today and add your loved ones to the Register of Honor. Help us honor, recognize, respect and remember our country’s veterans.

Here are highlights about this week’s Veteran of the Week:

Glenn was born in Fairfield, IA in 1919, but he called Birmingham his hometown. He served in the United States Air Force during World War II. He died in 2003, and is buried at Flint Creek Cemetery in Cullman.

In His Own Words:

“I respect all the combat vets from all wars this country has been involved in, but to me the ones of WWII stand out above the rest. When the entire world was being threatened by evil despots with the intent on world domination these men and women answered the call without hesitation, without questions and many were just teenagers. My mother’s brother was still in his teens when he ran ashore at Omaha Beach, as were many who died there that fateful day in June. And the women of that generation, who went to work in the factories who totally outproduced the Axis powers – many worked in dangerous munitions factories, some learned to fly so they could ferry newly built planes to dangerous outposts in the far reaches of the Pacific. These men and women are by far the “Greatest Generation” and the saddest thing is there aren’t many of them left.

Melanie Poole is Communications Officer for the American Village and can be reached at MPoole@americanvillage.org.