Local WWII Veteran Turns 99

By Damon Stone,
Staff Writer

Members of the Auxiliary 5712 VFW gathered at Sam’s on Friday, June 6 to celebrate the birthday of their oldest member, James “Boss” Weaver.

Born in 1926, Weaver had fought in World War II, having been stationed on Okinawa Island as a truck driver, and had taken part in the post-war occupation of Japan during 1946, and is one of five remaining veterans from the war still alive in the state.

Whenever he was in the war, he made $50 at the time, and sent half of it home to his mother, and whenever he became a paratrooper, he did the same to support his family.

“It is truly humbling to know that somebody has lived this long here in Allen County that went to fight for our freedom,” Dennis Harper, the county-judge executive, expressed. “It took people like Boss and the greatest generation, they call them, and they’re truly that greatest generation.”

After the war, Weaver had worked for the county’s road department for 30 years, and had become very beneficial to the county.

The celebration was put together in a collaborative effort between Harper, Sam Carter, owner of Sam’s Restaurant, and Del Hoskins, the junior vice commander of the VFW.

“I took phone calls from Sam Carter, and whatever he asked me to do, I tried my best to get it done,” Harper recalled. “We contacted the congressman’s office, talked to him a couple of times. We contacted the White House, but haven’t gotten anything from that yet, but I understand something is coming.”

Carter explained that Weaver and his family had been coming into the restaurant every day around the same time, and the idea for a party had spun out of a simple offering for a cake.

“I thought that, no, we all need to honor him, and so I got a hold of the judge, got a hold of the mayor, the state representative, and everybody was more than happy to pitch in and come together and honor one of the last surviving World War II veterans,” Carter recalled.

Carter had put an ad into the newspaper, and through word-of-mouth, had helped to spread the message to put together the celebration.

“Without men like him, (we) wouldn’t have the freedom we have,” Carter expressed. “I just wanted folks, mainly younger folks, to have the opportunity to say thank you for the things that they did for us.”

Along with celebrating Weaver’s birthday, June 6 was also the date when D-Day took place, where Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy in 1944, allowing them to gain a foothold in Nazi-occupied France, with the landing being commemorated during the event.

“So, 81 years ago today, 40 percent of the men that went ashore in Normandy passed away,” Hoskins explained. “This is an opportunity for us to stop as a community and say ‘thank you.’”

Hoskins iterated that their efforts to celebrate him was nothing compared to the sacrifice that he gave during the war.

“At the end of the war, when he came back to Scottsville, he did what most veterans do: they just disappeared into the workforce,” Hoskins explained. “His service and my service were surely different because he was drafted, and I joined voluntarily. But, that’s what happened to a lot of our veterans, and that’s why it’s hard for us to find them because they just come back and weave back into the community, and we may or may not know that they’re veterans for years to come.”

Janice Stinson, Weaver’s youngest daughter, was one of several family members at the celebration.

“It just shows how blessed we are and how blessed he is to even be here, and he knows just about everybody in Allen County, and if he doesn’t know them, they know him,” Stinson expressed. “(…) It’s just been a blessing to see everybody, especially with one of the storms and the rain.”

Weaver said that his secret to his long life has been “being careful.”