EDITOR’S NOTE: In honor of Veteran’s Day, we take a look back at one of Richland County’s most famous veterans. Longtime local columnist Ron Simon died earlier this month, after decades of reporting so many other veteran’s stories. Here was his, as originally reported on July 4, 2016:
MANSFIELD — Roeliff Brinkerhoff was a Mansfield product who reached the rank of general in the Union Army during the Civil War era.
Albert Allen Jr. hailed from Richland County and was a survivor of the Bataan Death March.
But an argument could be made that the most famous Armed Forces veteran of all carried a pen instead of a rifle, and his most famous war-time act was delivering life as opposed to participating in death.
His name is Ron Simon, and for nearly a half-century he has been the keeper of the flame for local veterans’ stories in north central Ohio as a columnist and reporter for the Mansfield News Journal.
“I went into basic training, Infantry training and tried out for Airborne, but couldn’t make it,” Simon said. “After that someone sent me to school to be a writer.
“I don’t know who made that decision, but thank God they did. They saw something in me that I didn’t see, and it turned my life around.”
Simon was a Shelby High School product, Class of 1959. He landed in the military almost by happenstance, he said.
“I was aimless,” he said.
After a bit of journalistic training in the service, he was transferred to San Francisco where he wrote for the Army at the Presidio. Next he was indoctrinated overseas at a local paper in Okinawa before landing in Saigon in 1961.
One of his earliest, and it turned out most dangerous experiences, was delivering mail in Vietnam, with his helicopter absorbing a couple blasts of enemy fire.
“I didn’t even hear anything, but when we landed they showed us two bullet holes,” Simon said.
It was as close as he came to combat, but he wasn’t immune from the horrors of war.
At one point his group was sent into the village of Chu Lai just after it was attacked by the Viet Cong. A native woman was able to avoid detection, but when she saw the Americans she cried out for help from an underground bunker.
“We got her out and it turned out she was very pregnant,” Simon said. “We loaded her onto a truck and I delivered her baby. They gave us a little bit of training for that and I used it. She wound up having a baby boy. That had nothing to do with me, I just happened to be there.
“The next day I was promoted to corporal and I stayed there for a long time.”
He remained in Saigon and served as an assistant editor for a radio station, writing and editing copy. He also wrote for Stars & Stripes on occasion.
Geographically, Simon bounced around from Korea to Okinowa and eventually re-enlisted. While in the service and after collecting his GED, he began taking college courses.
When he left Army life Simon came home and finished up at Ohio State, graduating in 1968. Just a few weeks later he was hired at the News Journal.
“George Constable recommended me,” Simon said. “He liked veterans.”
Constable was a long-time News Journal columnist.
A jack-of-all-trades at the News Journal, Simon covered news, meetings, authored features and showed a penchant for telling compelling, long-form stories. Eventually he became an award-winning columnist, something he still does.
“Sometimes, good columns are like wine, they need to age a little bit,” Simon said of his technique for writing columns, then going back to them after a day to tweak and edit.
But his most memorable work for many local readers has been his long series of veteran’s profiles.
Simon has interviewed survivors of Pearl Harbor, the Bataan Death March, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Okinowa, and New Guinea. A rough estimate would place his veteran profile total at more than 1,000 subjects.
“I didn’t meet very many guys in actual combat for two reasons,” Simon said. “Number one, there aren’t that many guys who were in actual combat. Number two, a lot of the ones that were didn’t come back.”
Simon has long been a master storyteller, and a recent battle with cancer and knee problems are the only things that have slowed him. Last autumn he had to temporarily suspend his veteran’s series because of health issues, but he hopes to pick it up again at some point.
If he does, there’s a strong and loyal base of readers in north central Ohio who will welcome that return.
His goal is to chronicle as many surviving alumni of World War II as possible. He’s profiled numerous Korean and Vietnam vets, too, but the World War II subjects are dwindling fast.
“I don’t run into them very often anymore,” he said.
Simon feels a sense of duty in sharing their stories, as he does with all veterans. In turn, they seem to feel a bond, trusting him with their memories.
“I know everybody has a story,” Simon said. “There’s a variety there when I meet these guys. The stories some of them tell are unbelievable.
“I’m just a writer, that’s what I do.”
No one in the history of Richland County has done it better.
