NASHVILLE (AP) — In a life full of milestones, Irving Locker celebrated a brand new, surprising one final week: He turned a printed songwriter.
Someday earlier than his one hundred and first birthday, “If Freedom Was Free” was launched by Large Machine Label Group and CreatiVets, the Nashville-based nonprofit that helps veterans work by way of their traumas by constructing one thing new by way of the humanities.
CreatiVets teamed Locker, a World Warfare II veteran who landed at Utah Seashore on D-Day, with Texas singer-songwriter Bart Crow and duo Johnny and Heidi Bulford, who additionally sing on the monitor. The refrain – “If freedom was free, there wouldn’t be a mountain of metal and men under Normandy” – consists of the message Locker has utilized in lectures from lecture rooms to the White Home. Freedom, he says, just isn’t free. Folks ought to be glad about it and for individuals who make it doable.
“I have to talk about things like that,” he says. “I got nothing to gain. But people have to know and appreciate the fact that they’re living because of men who died. It comes from the heart, not the lips.”
Locker, who now lives in The Villages, Florida, mentioned the possibility to jot down a music was an “unbelievable” thrill, one which he by no means dreamed doable. It means much more to him as a result of music is such an necessary a part of his life.
He mentioned he and his spouse of 77 years, Bernice, nonetheless exit dancing usually – nonetheless doing the jitterbug and the cha-cha as they’ve for many years.
“You should see me on the floor even now,” mentioned Locker, including that he is aware of how fortunate he’s to be alive and energetic when so many different veterans are usually not.
“To be very honest with you, I was never conscious of God until the war,” he mentioned. “But I came so close to dying that I learned how to thank God and use the simple phrase ‘But for the grace of God go I.’”
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