- November 27, 2024
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Flagler County will celebrate its veterans on Veterans Day with a blended ceremony and a parade.
This will be the first Flagler County Veterans Day Parade held in decades, according to the Flagler County website. The parade will begin with a Veterans’ Day Ceremony at 10 a.m. on Nov. 11 at the Coquina City Hall in Bunnell, where the Flagler County Veteran of the Year award recipient will be announced.
Flagler County has a population of 126,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and of that 126,000, roughly 12% — 10,750 — are veterans.
On Sunday, Oct. 29, Palm Coast’s Remembering Heroes event — co-founded by City Council member Cathy Heighter and Carol Pryor— honored a few of the county’s local heroes, including veterans and military service members who died in the line of duty.
Below are several of the veterans recognized by Remembering Heroes on Oct. 29.
Adolphus “AJ” Evans Jr. — U.S. Air Force
Adolphus “AJ” Evans Jr. said he entered the U.S. Air Force in part for his education.
“I felt like that would help my family,” he said.
Going into the academy ensured his parents did not have to pay for his education, he said, and he didn't mind the commitment to service because he was familiar with the Air Force through his father, Adolphus Evans Sr., who served a 26-year career in the branch.
In 1976, as a 17-year-old high school graduate from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Evans was one of 1,800 applicants accepted into the U.S. Air Force Academy. Of those accepted in his class, he said, 73 were black, and only 46 of the 73 graduated — himself included.
After graduating with his degree in operations research in 1981, Evans began his five-year commitment in the Air Force as a scientific analyst in Denver, Colorado.
After finishing his commitment, Evans said, he went into business with his mother, Alma Evans, creating a for-profit corporate training firm and a nonprofit for underprivileged kids in Pittsburgh.
Evans later joined the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he worked for 30 years until he retired in 2020 and moved to Palm Coast with his wife, Starlene.
Since moving to Palm Coast, Evans has become involved with the NAACP’s Flagler County branch, 5147-B. Because of his military background, he said, he was asked to chair the branch’s new Veterans Affairs Committee.
Evans said working with the NAACP is his guiding light right now.
“My particular charge is using my veteran experience to conduct … positive activities within the Flagler County community in order to effect positive change,” he said.
Larry White — U.S. Air Force
Larry White enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1959 at the age of 17. He needed permission from his parents to enlist, since he was under the age of 18.
White served four years in the Air Force. He was stationed in Okinawa, Japan, where he learned to speak and write Japanese. White finished his four years in 1963 at the age of 21 and later attended college at Ohio State University.
“I regret getting out when I did,” he said.
From there, White said, he went to work with North American Aviation until his job was transferred to St. Louis. He then became a salesman and entrepreneur.
He married his second wife, Nikki, in the summer of 1979. In the mid-1990s, the two of them went sailing around the Bahamas for nine years until they decided to make their home in Palm Coast in 2005.
Now Nikki and Larry White are known in Flagler County for the nonprofit they co-founded in 2014, The American Flag Project. Nikki White said the project stemmed from their desire to support America instead of increasingly polarized political parties.
White said that as a veteran himself, he can understand what other veterans have gone through.
Nikki White said the benefits offered to veterans — health care and educational opportunities in particular — are amazing, despite the great risks of service.
“The piece in the middle of that is that you’re supporting your country,” Nikki White said. “This country is so unique that we need to support it.”
Lloyd Freckleton — U.S. Army
Flagler Beach resident and Lloyd Freckleton served a 40-year career in the U.S. Army, first as an enlisted soldier and later as an officer in the Army Reserve. He retired as a colonel in 2008.
Freckleton, born in Jamaica, was drafted into the Army in July 1968 at the age of 19. Freckleton completed his basic training in Fort Gordon, Georgia and his advanced training in Fort Leavenworth, Missouri, and was sent to Vietnam from July 1969 to July 1970.
When he returned from Vietnam, Freckleton said, the anti-war sentiment kept him from re-enlisting, though he remained in the Army Reserve.
He spent 21 years in New York, becoming the warden of the New York City Department of Corrections. While he worked there, Freckleton said, he went to the Army Officer Candidate School and received his commission.
He served in the reserves’ military police in New York until he was activated for Desert Storm for seven months, from 1990 to 1991. After he returned from Desert Storm, Freckleton retired from New York corrections in 1992.
Choosing to move to Flagler County, Freckleton applied for and received a commander position for a military police battalion in the First Army Reserve Command, headquartered in Atlanta.
Freckleton said his battalion was sent to Haiti from 1994 through 1995. When they returned, he said, he was asked to return to active duty.
For three and a half years, he said, he traveled on active duty through countries in Africa and the Middle East. Freckleton was promoted to colonel in 2000 and retired from the Army in 2008. He now lives in Flagler Beach with his wife, Deborah.
Even though he has had recent health issues — including battling male breast cancer and a recent triple-bypass surgery — Freckleton serves on the board of the Daytona State College.
Freckleton said he wouldn’t change anything about his military career.
“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed my time in the Army. I’m not going to say it was all roses, but it was good to me, and I hope I was good to the Army.”
