ROCHELLE — After being born and raised in Rochelle, Carl Hansen made the decision to enlist into the United States Army in 1949. 

“I’m not sure why I chose to enlist,” Hansen said. “Myself and a couple of other guys decided to do it. I told my folks I joined when I was 17. It was kind of scary for a while after World War II and when Korea came up. But I was pretty fortunate.” 

Hansen’s first overseas tour was in Korea for about a year, before being evacuated to Japan. There, he served in the Japan Quartermaster Petroleum Depot in Yokohama and was stationed on a little island refueling Navy ships for about a year. Hansen then returned to the U.S. and Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for a short time. 

Hansen had volunteered to return to Europe and went to France for three years for more work with petroleum. After that tour ended, he went back to the U.S. at Fort Hood, Texas before his entire unit was transferred to Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

Hansen would meet and marry his wife in Colorado Springs. He then left the Army for about a year before returning for another tour in Germany for two years. And then Hansen came back stateside to Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, where he went to school for calibration. After a stint at the Army Depot in Sacramento, California and another school stint at Fort Monmouth, Hansen returned to Europe for three years and took his family with him. 

“I was in calibration and we went all over Europe and calibrated equipment,” Hansen said. “We had teams that would do it. A lot of military people were selling their leave time back to the government at that time. I thought to myself that I had a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I used that leave time to take my family around Europe. And we did. We went all over. We went to a little island in the North Sea off the coast of Germany called Sylt. The American Coast Guard was stationed there. During WWII, it was the safest place in the world to be, because all of the airplanes from every country depended on that island and its radar signals to find their way home. So. nobody would ever bombed the island. It was a very small island. We stayed there at a German submarine base. Because everything on the island was so expensive.”

After his deployment to Europe with his family, Hansen returned to the states and Fort Monmouth for about a year. He then left the Army for the last time after serving for 20 years, two months and 22 days. 

Hansen would return to Northern California to work in calibration and electrical work for the government, which he did for 20 years before retirement. He now resides in Abilene, Kansas at age 92. 

The most enjoyable experiences of his time in the service involved overseas deployments, Hansen said. He enjoyed refueling Navy ships in Japan, and while in Europe he enjoyed going to petroleum depots in France, Germany and Spain and taking samples to test that it was up to military specifications.

“When I first got to Japan, I worked in an office and I didn’t care for my job,” Hansen said. “An officer came in one day who I knew and he asked if I liked my job. I told him how I felt, and he offered to give me a new job, the one taking samples. And then I got transferred to a place an hour north of Paris. I was in charge of the petroleum there. I had to make sure it was safe and watch shipments.”

Hansen was asked once how many different countries he’d been to. He didn’t know, so he got out a map one day, and found that he had spent time in 48 different counties during his service. 

“And I loved every minute of it,” Hansen said. “I used to always tell people that in 20 years in the Army, I only had one bad assignment, which was in Korea. But then I thought Korea couldn’t have been so bad, because I’m still here.”

Hansen said he stayed in the military for 20 years because of how much he enjoyed traveling. He liked his assignments and got to see the country and world. His service also gave him education for the rest of his career in the civilian world. 

“I saw a lot of places. And none of it was bad,” Hansen said. “What I remember most is being able to take my family around Europe with my leave time. The most unique place I ever was was that little island of Sylt. It had a one-lane road from one end of it to the other and every so often there would be a wide spot in the road to pull off and let an oncoming car through. I’m thankful that I enlisted and served.”

Honoring Our American Hero is a series that will print twice a month in the News-Leader. If you know an American Hero you would like to have featured, contact Jeff Helfrich at jhelfrich@rochellenews-leader.com or call 815-561-2151.