JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville gym celebrated one of the oldest surviving World War II veterans, who just turned 99 years old, with a special area dedicated to him outside the establishment.
“We wanted to do something special for a very special guy,” a staff member at EnerGYM NorthJAX said.
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On Thursday, staff at the EnerGYM NorthJAX on North Main Street held a ceremony to honor former Sgt. John Connelly.
“A person who trains at one spot for 18 years, deserves kudos in itself,” a gym staff member said. “Not to mention everything else that John has accomplished in his life, so we just wanted to dedicate this area on his behalf.”
The gym placed a flag and a plaque with Connelly’s name engraved on it on a wall as a way to honor the loyal member — and his service to our country.
Watch the full ceremony honoring Connelly below:
But that’s not the only celebration Connelly received.
Connelly was surprised by gym staff and fellow gym members as they sang “Happy Birthday” to him at the EnerGYM NorthJAX on North Main Street Wednesday.
“Someone loves me out there,” Connelly said.
According to Jacob Wulff, the gym’s marketing director, Connelly has been a gym member for nearly two decades. He works out at least three days a week.
“Committed, hardworking,” Wulff said of Connelly. “That’s something you don’t see from people that are a quarter his age.”
‘I had to be on the team’
Connelly fought in World War II, as part of the Air Corps near the end of the war, and is one of the last surviving veterans who fought in that war.
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“I had to be on the team. I was an athlete and always had to make a team. I had to be on that team. I would have felt like half a man if I could not serve,” Connelly said. “It made a man out of me. If I was not a part of that action, I would be only half a man.”
During his eighth mission as a gunner, Connelly’s aircraft was attacked and shot down over Germany in 1944.
Connelly, then 19 years old, was able to safely escape the aircraft, but his parachute ended up caught in a tree, and he had to cut himself down with razor blades.
“As I am walking back, another older man in the group comes up and walks alongside of us,” Connelly recalled. “He said to me in broken English, ‘I prisoner, World War I. You, now German prisoner.’ My brain spun around.”
Connelly was captured and spent 10 months as a prisoner of war.
During his time as a POW, one of the camps he was in was forced to evacuate during the Battle of the Bulge.
“After we got out of there, they marched us out in the snow. For the next 52 days, we slept in bars, on the ground and everything,” Connelly said.
He said they were marched across Germany to an English camp in another part of the country.
Connelly’s brother-in-law, Robert Pollett, said Connelly had a log of his entire experience, including being taken in by a family that looked after him.
“John kept notes of his whole ordeal through every camp that he was in,” Pollett said. “He would scribble his notes on a matchbook cover.”
Now Connelly’s service is being remembered in a more permanent way -- with a monument outside his gym.
“We felt that it was really important to leave behind a legacy for future generations to have a place to remember his sacrifices and have his name forever part of a monument where we can remember him, and all the hard work that he put in -- his dedication,” Wulff said.