Howard Seitzer looked back on a life of service Wednesday, full of stories, as friends and family gathered to wish him a happy 103rd birthday.
Seitzer flew air missions into Germany during World War II and later joined the St. Paul Fire Department.
All of his five living children were in attendance offering a slice of cake to anyone who stopped in at Oak Meadows Senior Living center in Oakdale to wish their dad happy birthday.
The father of six wore a blue hat embroidered with the title “WW II Veteran.” He served in the 8th Air Force Division 379th Bombardment Group from 1944 to 1945 on B-17 heavy bombers.
“Well if I fought for the country I might as well get a hat, too,” Seitzer said.
35 missions
He enlisted after working for Lockheed Martin in California making airplanes for the British military. His only request before leaving for basic training was to go home to St. Peter, Minn., first.
At Kimbolton base in England going on a mission was always a choice, he said. Some requested ground assignments.
But Seitzer kept saying yes.
“I wasn’t gonna quit once I started,” he said. He completed 35 missions.
The first time German forces shot back he said he yelled, “What the hell am I doing here, I didn’t even have to be here.”
His division provided air support during the Battle of the Bulge. It was so foggy at the time planes were taking off by an assigned a time so they they wouldn’t hit each other, he recalled. When Seitzer’s plane took off it hit a beacon pole which blew out one of the four engines. The B-17s couldn’t take off without all four engines but with a plane coming behind them and farmland in front of them the co-pilot bounced the plane and used open space to skim the ground until they got to the right height.
Seitzer remembers being on a military base in Oklahoma when the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. It was his 25th birthday and he has said it was his best present because he knew the war was finally over.
After the war
After the war he met his wife Virginia Bisch. He was with his friend, Norb, and his girlfriend when Bisch walked by, he remembers. She happened to be Norb’s girlfriend’s sister so later Seitzer asked Norb to set him up with her. They married in 1948.
Seitzer worked in the St. Paul Fire Department starting in 1949. When he wasn’t putting out fires he was building a house for his family on Dale Street. When the family outgrew that house he built another one on Iowa Street.
The adventures continued for Seitzer and his family.
His children recall a trip to Canada years ago in their 1961 Chevy station wagon that towed a camper they call the “silver bullet.”
As the family came through customs, the officials working the border didn’t know about the blueberries. So many blueberries stuffed into any container that they could use. Pots, pans and upside-down hats sat in the “silver bullet” camper.
Seitzer had stopped at every blueberry field he could find and sent his six children out to pick berries.
“We almost got arrested,” said daughter Marilyn Freberg, laughing.
Son Jim added: “Yeah, we’re lucky.”
After he retired from the St. Paul Fire Department in 1978 Seitzer and his wife traveled the world square dancing.
His secret to a long life?
Never having smoked and “eating oysters whenever I get the chance,” he said.
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