News
Providing comfort to soldiers and veterans
Scott Wagar
01/22/2013
It’s been said that in the quilting world that men are better quilt makers than women. Whether this statement is true or not, one thing is for certain for a Bottineau man who is a war veteran, his quilt making skills ranks him high in the chain of command with the local quilters.
“I started by cutting quilt blocks for therapy,” said Ron Martin. “I have neuropathy in my hands from chemo therapy treatment from my cancer. So, eight years ago my wife put me to work cutting quilt blocks. She then started me sewing rows and all of sudden I was putting a quilt together.”
In the past eight years, Martin has made a number of quilts and he has even started to appear for demonstration shows of his quilt creation, which is what he was doing on Tuesday afternoon when he was asked by the Bottineau Senior Citizens Club to show a couple of his quilts to the group at the senior citizen building.
“I am showing demonstrations today on a patchwork quilt I did,” Martin said. “But, I am really here today to show what I enjoy making the most, GI Crazy Quilts.”
A GI Crazy Quilt is comforter created from military uniforms with soldiers’ patches (name, rank, service, etc…) and tied off with GI buttons.
“No two quilts are made alike,” said Martin, who added that he uses three different styles of uniforms to make his quilts. “I have the digital gray, desert and the old BDU uniforms from the 80s and 90s.”
In his time as a quilt maker, Martin has sent eight of his GI Crazy quilts to Kosovo for National Guardsmen, one to Pogo Pago (America Samoa) for a soldier from Minnesota and one for a Vietnam vet from Minot and his daughter who is a soldier who has been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
“I incorporated his stuff from Vietnam in with his daughter’s quilt,” said Martin, who also said the veteran from Vietnam recently called him back and asked if he could make a quilt for his father who is a World War II veteran. “I told him, if I can find some World War II uniforms I will do it for him.”
The quilt which Martin demonstrated for Bottineau Senior Citizen Club will be making its way to two Bismarck soldiers.
“Some friends called me and asked if I would be willing to make a GI Crazy quilt for the Bismarck National Guard Support Group’s Christmas party. The group was planning to have an auction and fundraisers to help soldiers and their families in deployment,” Martin said. “In turn, the quilt would be given to two bothers who are soldiers. One is a Spec 4 in the National Guard and the other is a Warrant Officer.
“The two brothers do not know they will be getting the quilt,” Martin said on Tuesday afternoon. “So, I will be delivering the quilt to Minot on Saturday because the younger of the two will be going overseas at the end of the month.”
For Martin, who stated that he enjoys making quilts, the art of making GI Crazy quilts is a service of honor for him.
“The patchwork quilts I do for myself,” he said. “When I do the GI Crazy quilts, I’m doing them for a veteran and I am doing them for a soldier. It is my way of honoring a soldier. It’s a veteran taking care of a veteran.”
Martin served in the U.S. military for 20 years in active service and spent five and a half more years in the reserve. During his service to his country, he served in four different combat units. He joined the military in 1966 and his first tour of overseas duty was in the late 1960s in Korea, where he was stationed on the DMZ with the Second Infantry Division.
While Martin served on the DMZ, the Pueblo Incident took place where the North Koreans boarded and captured the US Flagship, USS Pueblo, which happened on Jan. 23, 1968, and turned into an 11-month confrontation concerning 82 prisoners who were tortured and abused by the North Koreans in many different ways. The U.S. soldiers were released on Dec. 23, 1968. However, the USS Pueblo is still today in the hands of the North Koreans and is used as a ship museum. The USS Pueblo is presently the only U.S. service vessel held in captivity.
“I saw my first causalities when I was 17,” Martin said. “And, I was in Korea at the time of the Pueblo Incident, which took place under President Lyndon B. Johnson.”
For Martin, there is true honor for him in honoring the soldiers and veterans of oversea deployments with the quilts he designs and creates for them. And, there is no doubt that the GI Crazy quilts, the comforters themselves, bring honorable comfort to the soldiers who receive them.