“I think we’ve got a great candidate this month,” said Kosciusko County Veterans Affair Officer Rich Maron.

The veteran of the month, honored at the March 10 Kosciusko County Commissioners meeting, was Jerry Howard McCartney.

McCartney was born in 1932. He was the captain of his football team in high school and the first recipient of the Fisher Award.

At the age of 20, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. “I thought it was time I honored a Navy vet,” said Maron. McCartney was one of 10 men from the Warsaw area who enlisted at that time.

McCartney completed his basic training at the Great Lakes naval base. He was a third class metalsmith, and was stationed on the USS Prairie for the majority of his military career. The Prairie was a destroyer tender, a floating workshop designed to maintain other US and Allied ships.

His tour took him through Pearl Harbor, and he was stationed in Japan for a year and a half. He spent some time in Korea before his discharge.

After the Navy, he spent 50 years working for Kroger/Owens in Warsaw. He retired in 2013.

He and his wife, Margie, have been married for 62 years. They had two children, four grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.