Russell-Toycen American Legion Post 131 working toward veterans’ memorial
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Colfax Veteran’s Memorial Park
By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — Members of the Russell-Toycen American Legion Post 131 in Colfax are working on raising funds for the Colfax Veterans Memorial at Evergreen Cemetery.
The location of the veterans’ memorial will be near the entrance of Evergreen Cemetery located on county Highway M in Colfax
The plan for the memorial is to install flagpoles representing each branch of military service, along with the United States flag and the POW/MIA flags.
Members of Russell-Toycen American Legion Post 131 also are planning to sell legacy stones and pavers with the names of veterans and their ranks and branch of service that will be placed at the memorial.
Granite stones and/or benches will be purchased as well and inscribed for placement around the memorial flags.
Russell
The Russell-Toycen Post is named after two veterans: Orrin Russell, a veteran of World War I, and Dermont Toycen Jr., a veteran of World War II.
According to the February 27, 1919, Colfax Messenger, “Mrs. J. B. Russell is in receipt of a letter from her son, John, written at Coblenze, Germany, under the date of January 20. He is in the best of health and anxious to get back to the states. The following excerpts taken from the letter tell of the death of his brother, Orrin:
“I met a couple of boys who knew Orrin. They said he was killed just before they took the town of Gessnes in the Argonne Forest. He was well liked and a friend of everyone. The morning before they went into the lines his top sergeant stepped up to him and just as a joke said: ‘Russell you will have to go up this time.’ Orrin replied, ‘I am glad of it for I am tired of being left behind.’
“That night when they were lined up to go, he was there with his pack. The sergeant told him he was not to go, that he was just fooling, but Orrin would not go back, repeating that he wanted to go. He was killed the next day as they were advancing.
“So mother, he did the best and they did not make him go. He went of his own free will. He is buried near Gisness, but they are going to take most of the dead to the States. Of course, some of the boys will never return, but they have done their best, and they surely were a brave bunch of fellows. They will never be forgotten. Their names will go down in history for their sacrifices.”
Toycen
The second man for whom the Russell-Toycen American Legion Post 131 is named for was a brother of lifelong Colfax resident Dick Toycen.
Roderick (“Dick”) Toycen died December 23, 2016.
The Colfax Messenger was privileged to interview Dick Toycen in September of 2008 for a series on area veterans called “Serving Our Country.”
Here are some excerpts from the article:
Lifelong Colfax resident Dick Toycen served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. At one time, he owned and operated the Toycen Insurance Agency. He also has worked for the postal service and part-time as a driver for Commercial Testing. Here is Dick’s story:
I graduated from high school in ’42. I was 17 years old. I enlisted when I was 17, but I didn’t get in until January of ’43 because there were so many of us going in then. That was just after Pearl Harbor. They couldn’t handle everybody. I was discharged in ’46. I was in three years and three months.
I wanted to go into the Navy because you had a better chance of going to a school if you went into the Navy. I went to Aviation Machinists Mate’s school. After boot camp — that was at Great Lakes — I went to Aviation Machinists Mate’s school in downtown Chicago, or almost in downtown Chicago …
For a while, I was on another small aircraft carrier and we made a trip over to Pearl Harbor. We transported a whole bunch of Marines and their equipment from San Diego to Pearl Harbor. When that was done, we brought a bunch more people back to San Diego.
We were on there temporarily until they got that one trip done. That was a small aircraft carrier. I had it pretty easy. I was never shot at.
A lot of the ships were still sunk in Pearl Harbor. They hadn’t gotten them out of there yet. I’ve been back there three times since … That was really something, Pearl Harbor. That one ship that was sunk — it gets a lot of publicity — the Arizona. They made that into a national monument. They have a lot of ceremonies there.
My son was a Master Chief Petty Officer. He was a chief of one division of men, enlisted men. One of his men had re-enlisted. Anyone in that area who was re-enlisting, they’d go out on the Arizona and have the ceremony there. It’s really something, the Arizona. It makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
Bataan
The reason I went (into the service), too, was my brother. He went in January of 1941. He had his basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and when he was through with that — he had taken typing in high school — he was one of those sent to company clerk’s school.
When he was done with that, he got sent right over to the Philippines. He never got home once he enlisted. The Philippines were attacked at the same time as Pearl Harbor, but we didn’t hear much about that to begin with.
They had to give up because they had no ammunition and no food. They were captured by the Japanese. He was on that Death March. He did not survive the Death March. He was Dermont Junior. (Bataan Death March; 1942; 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war were forced to march 60 miles in tropical heat.)
A friend of his wrote a book about that, “Of Rice and Men.” He sent my folks a copy. And on the flyleaf, he wrote to my folks, “Your son was my good friend.” In this book, he told about all the things that had happened. He told about what the Japanese did.
They were marching from Bataan to Corregidor. They didn’t have anything to eat. They were all sick and starving. They bayoneted a lot of them to get rid of them. If they fell down, sometimes they would shoot them and leave them lay. We didn’t know that right away. We started hearing some of those things. But we didn’t know, really, just what was going on.
We had a lot of troops over there in Europe before we got into the war with Japan. We were attacked. That made a big difference. We weren’t attacked in these places like Iraq. I’m not happy about all of that. I don’t think it is up to us to police the world.
The American Legion post — it was called the Russell Post first after the first person to die from here in World War I. Now it’s the Russell-Toycen Post. The Toycen part of it is for my brother. He was the first one from here killed in World War II.
Evergreen Cemetery
The Colfax Village Board approved an ordinance to annex Evergreen Cemetery in February of 2014.
Prior to that, although the village owned the cemetery, it was located in the Town of Colfax.
The annexation included the First Addition to Evergreen Cemetery and the Second Addition, all located in Section 15 of the township.
The Second Addition is on land that was previously used as a school forest.
Peoples State Bank deeded 28 acres to the Colfax school district in 1943 to be used for a school forest.
According to the warranty deed, the land was to be used by the school district for “reforestation purposes” and when the school district was no longer using the land for trees, the land could only be used for the cemetery.
If you would like to donate to the Colfax Veterans Memorial Fund, checks can be made payable to American Legion Post 131 Veterans Memorial.
Your checks can be mailed to School District of Colfax; Attn.: Veterans Memorial Fund; 601 University Avenue; Colfax WI 54730.
You can also drop your checks off at the Colfax High School/District Office.
