November 6, 2021, Honor Flight: Army Veteran Glenn Bogenschneider of Slinger, WI

Slinger, WI – Washington County United States Army Veteran Glenn Bogenschneider’s Stars & Stripes Honor Flight on Saturday, November 6, 2021, will be a unique experience for him and one of his best friends—they enlisted together on September 29, 1965, at the Beaver Dam Induction Center.

Bogenschneider and his buddy, Andy Gehring of Menomonee Falls, WI, got drafted at the same time, enlisted, then parted ways with their military orders. “At the time he was drafted he was still living on his parent’s farm,” said Bogenschneider, “We ran into each other at a fundraiser about 12 years ago.”

Since that time, Bogenschneider and Gehring have been the best of friends, and will now be sharing the upcoming Honor Flight experience together.

Bogenschneider was 21 when he enlisted in the United States Army. “I was in during the Vietnam era,” he said, “but I served in Korea.” He served for two years as a personnel specialist and earned the rank of Specialist 5 by the time of discharge in 1967.

Boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri was different for Bogenschneider than most Army veterans. “It was so crowded because that was the build-up for the Vietnam War,” said Bogenschneider, “We had to stay in the women’s barracks. So, we had two bunks, then a partition, two bunks, then a partition, two bunks, then a partition…”

Bogenschneider did not start out looking for an administrative job when he enlisted. He went to Fort Sill, OK, after basic training in Missouri, and graduated as an artillery surveyor.

“But when I got to Korea,” Bogenschneider said, “[They saw] I had two-and-a-half years of business college and could type 80 words per minute. They changed my MOS (military occupational specialty) to personnel specialist and I never spent one day in artillery survey.”

“I worked at Camp St. Barbara, an artillery camp eight miles from the DMZ,” said Bogenschneider, “We were part of I Corps.”

Bogenschneider said, tongue in cheek, of his time spent working in personnel. “I was very fortunate I did not have to pull KP or guard duty. I was ‘duty exempt,” he said, “Those were my two favorite words.” On a more serious note, Bogenschneider said he “cut all kinds of orders – transfer orders, discharge orders, flight arrangements” and kept the flow of personnel, both incoming and outgoing, on an even keel.

Upon discharge, Bogenschneider went back to school and obtained a degree in Business Administration from Spencerian Business College in Milwaukee. He went on to obtain his master’s degree at Lake Forest School of Management in Illinois.

He utilized his business degree at numerous job that he held over the years, starting at Blue Cross of Wisconsin, then spending about 15 years at AllState in Kenosha where he was living at the time.

Bogenschneider had an opportunity to move back to the area he was raised in and relocated his family to the Hartford area where he lives now with his wife, Sandra. He met his wife while working at Blue Cross and they have been married for 47 years. They have one son, Ryan, who will be accompanying Bogenschneider on the upcoming Honor Flight, and a daughter, Heather. They have five grandchildren.

Bogenschneider retired in 2009 from AAA (American Automobile Association) and took up lawn mowing at a local golf course. “I’m a farm boy,” he said, “I was born and raised on a farm and if there was an opportunity to drive a tractor, I’d jump on it.”

In his so-called spare time, Bogenschneider pitches horseshoes, not just locally, but all over the nation. “I’ve pitched in Utah, Arizona, Louisiana, Florida, Buffalo…Springfield, Topeka, Montgomery, East Monroe (LA), Phoenix” said Bogenschneider, “Every year there’s a world tournament and I went nine years straight in Cedar Rapids.” His wife doesn’t pitch but supports his hobby and he is fine with that.

Bogenschneider and his wife like to travel mainly, as he said, “up nort”’ to the Mercer area.

When Bogenschneider left Korea he arrived in the United States on July 4, 1967. “So you know we’d been gone for 16 months, most of us, and we were landing and all these fireworks were going off throughout Seattle in the neighborhood and that just brought tears in our eyes.”