Iowa Sibling Veterans Are Rarest Survivors of Grand Generation

The five Gass brothers of Iowa carry an interesting distinction.

They may well be the largest, still-surviving set of U.S. siblings who served during World War II. They will be honored today by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad in a Veterans Day ceremony.

The brothers are four years apart. There is Wayne, 89, Warren, 88, Darrell will be 87 in March, and the babies, twins Ron and Roger, are 86.

"Mom had five boys in four years," Darrell Gass said.

It's been quite a year for the brothers, who are all members of . They've been interviewed by local and national media and now they're being honored by the governor.

Wayne, Warren, Roger and Ron Gass didn't quite understand why their brother Darrell was pushing them so hard to take one of the Honor Flights to Washington D.C. last year. The flights were subsidized by businessman William Knapp, who wanted to make sure World War II veterans who wanted to see the WWII memorial were flown there.

Darrell said it had begun to dawn on him shortly before the Honor Flight in May of 2010 that he and his siblings might be unique.

Not because they were all soldiers in the war. Many families sent several, even all, of their sons. The most famous being the five Sullivan Brothers, also from Iowa, who insisted on serving together on the same ship and were all killed in 1942 when it was sunk.

Not because they were war heros. The brothers served in the Army, Navy and the SeaBees, the Navy's construction battalions.  Warren worked for the War Department and "never got out of Washington, D.C." said Darrell. And the youngest, Ron, enlisted shortly before the war ended.

"It's because we're all still alive," said Darrell. "It's amazing. I don't think there are five brothers like us alive today."

People who know about such things, those with the Veterans Administration, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the World War II museum in New Orleans, say he's probably right, although they can't be sure.

"We assume they are," said Scott Moline, commander of the Urbandale American Legion Post, which has been pushing for recognition of the Gass brothers.

Moline wrote the proclamation for Branstad to read, which honors the brothers as being the only surviving family of five World War II veterans.

They're all still living in their own homes in Des Moines or Urbandale.

The boys grew up on a farm south of Melcher, Iowa. After the war, their lives took them in different directions and different cities. Wayne retired as director of a VA hospital in South Dakota; Warren sold Buicks in the Des Moines area; Darrell was a real estate agent for 50 years. Roger and Ron were both in the insurance business.

They raised their children and watched their grandchildren grow up. About 35 to 40 of those kids and grandkids are returning to Des Moines for today's celebration.

"This is a rich heritage for this family," said Pam Murphy, Darrell's daughter.

But like the children of many World War II veterans, Murphy didn't grow up hearing about her father's war experiences. "There was not a lot of conversation about the war, even when we all got together."

"They're like a lot of the Grand Generation," she said, referring to Tom Brokaw's book about the men and women of World War II. "They might have memories that kept them up at night, but it was not something they wanted to talk about or share."

"This has made them a little uncomfortable even though it's been a great ride over the last year. There's a lot of humility here," she said.