Anna Heintz became the first female veteran to speak at Sioux Center High School’s annual Veterans Day ceremony Wednesday, November 11th, urging students and community members to recognize the sacrifices that military service can leave unseen.
Heintz, 27, a 2018 Sioux Center graduate who served as a combat medic with the Iowa National Guard, was the featured speaker during a program that also honored Jim Vos and Larry Landman with Quilts of Valor.
The ceremony included the National Anthem and Battle Hymn of the Republic performed by the Sioux Center High School Choir.
Recognizing Unseen Sacrifices
Heintz reflected on her experiences growing up in Sioux Center, finding her direction after high school, and deploying to Qatar in 2020. She described both the challenges of military life and the opportunities it provided, including education benefits, lasting friendships, and a broader perspective from traveling and meeting people from other backgrounds.
But she cautioned that those opportunities come with a cost, even when veterans return without visible injuries.
“I won’t stand up here and pretend my deployment was violent or physically difficult because it wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean everyone comes home unharmed or without a scratch,” Heintz said.
She explained that time away from home affected service members in different ways.
“For some, it was just missing out on weddings, family milestones, birthdays, Christmases, things that you expect when you deploy, or you join the military. For some people, it was a lot deeper with feelings of extreme depression, anxiety of the unknown, and loneliness that comes with spending nine to twelve months in a foreign country,” she said.
Heintz also asked the audience to consider the families whose lives are shaped by deployments.
“I want you to think about the men who missed the birth of their first child, or a child in their first entire year of life because they were overseas. I want you to think about the spouses of those men that had to carry and deliver those children all on their own, and go through their entire pregnancy by themselves,” she said.
Her message urged listeners to look beyond a veteran’s appearance and recognize the personal and family sacrifices behind their service.
Jim Vos Recognized for Army Service
The Sioux Center American Legion Auxiliary presented a Quilt of Valor to Vos, 83, whose Army service included work supporting military operations in Southeast Asia.
According to the tribute read during the ceremony, Vos was drafted in May 1965. After training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he served in Okinawa, Japan, from November 1965 to May 1967 with the 175th Ordnance Company.
Vos worked the night shift in the motor pool, maintaining vehicles and helping dispatch trucks at an ammunition depot.
“He scrounged parts from mangled vehicles that had been shipped back from Vietnam. The ammo dump was close to the airport, so there was always a concern that a plane would crash, causing a chain reaction of explosions,” the presenter said.
The tribute also noted that Vos returned home to help on the family dairy farm and married his fiancée, Betty, a month later. He keeps in touch with four men he served with.
Larry Landman Honored for Vietnam Service
Landman, 79, also received a Quilt of Valor. His tribute described service that began with the Iowa Army National Guard in Sheldon in January 1966 and later took him to Vietnam.
Landman served primarily as a foot soldier in Vietnam and received two Purple Hearts for injuries sustained during his service. While hospitalized, he was visited by his friend and fellow Sioux Center serviceman Arlen Franken, who was killed in action a few days later, on July 19th, 1969.
Landman returned home on Labor Day in 1969 after receiving an early release for seasonal farm work. The presenter recalled the loss that accompanied that return.
“But it was also a sad homecoming, because only three of the four soldiers that left together came back home that day,” the presenter said.
Janet Verburg, representing the Sioux Center American Legion Auxiliary and Quilts of Valor Foundation, explained that the quilts express gratitude for veterans’ service and sacrifice while offering comfort and a lasting reminder of the community’s appreciation.
