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A photo in the Sioux City Journal of May 6, 1945, shows Major General Leland Hobbs, Commander of the 30th Infantry Division, pinning a Bronze Star on Tech Sgt. Dale Iler’s uniform.
Iler served in the 119th Regiment of the 30th Infantry Division until he was discharged in May 1945. The 30th was a crucial factor in the defeat of the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. But whether Sergeant Iler was able to participate in that battle is unclear to this writer.
The citation accompanying Iler’s Bronze Star noted he had earned the medal for “meritorious achievement and service from June 15 to Dec. 8, 1944, in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany.” The Battle of the Bulge began Dec. 16 and lasted until Jan. 25, 1945.
An article in the Randolph Times reported Iler had been hospitalized for three months due to a shrapnel wound in his knee. If he was able to fight in the Battle of the Bulge he did not write about it.
After he returned home in June 1945, Iler began working for the Union Pacific railroad in Omaha. There he met a young lady named Bette Lou Wilson, who worked in the UP office. They were married on Jan. 12, 1946.
Civilian life must not have agreed with Iler. In 1947 he reenlisted in the army. The Sioux City Journal of July 22 reported Sergeant Iler had joined the staff in the recruiting office in Sioux City.
Military life must not have agreed with Bette Lou. She filed for divorce in September 1947 and their marriage was dissolved by decree in June 1948. But the soap opera wasn’t over.
Dale and Bette Lou seem to have rekindled their romance. The Randolph Times reported that a baby girl was born to them on Dec. 4, 1949, at Fort Riley, Kansas. They named her Dianna Sue.
But just like an old country song, the flame soon burned out. Bette Lou filed for divorce again in September 1950. There would be no going back.
Sgt. Iler left for Korea Dec. 20, 1950. This time he would not be in a combat situation. In January 1951 he was transferred to the headquarters of the Far Eastern Command in Tokyo, Japan, where he was promoted to Warrant Officer Junior Grade and assigned to General Matthew Ridgway’s office. Gen. Ridgway was Commander in Chief of the United Nations forces in Korea. While stationed in Tokyo, Iler met a young lady named Dorothy Blankenship. Originally from Knoxville, Tenn., Dorothy was a civilian employee of the Department of the Army in Japan.
In September 1951 Iler was sent back to Korea where he worked as an assistant to the United Nations delegation. He attended several peace meetings at Panmunjom.
In December 1951 Iler and Blankenship announced their engagement. She was still in Tokyo. He was working with the UN Command Delegation at Munsan, a Korean village near Panmunjom. They were married in Tokyo May 3, 1952. Their picture appeared in the Knoxville Journal on May 25.
Warrant Officer and Mrs. Iler returned to the U.S. in November 1952. After spending part of his 40-day, leave in Randolph with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Iler, he was assigned to Camp Atterbury, Indiana. This would be the first of many moves the couple would make over the next few years.
The next move was to Omaha in August 1953 where Iler taught classes for the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program at Creighton University. Their first child, a boy named Jimmy, was born there in November 1954.
In 1955 Master Sergeant Iler was transferred to the Panama Canal Zone. The family was billeted in Panama until 1958 when he was sent to Des Moines, Iowa. Two more girls were born there: one in 1960, the other in 1961.
Iler may have missed the birth of his daughter, Janice, in December 1961. The Aug. 17 Wayne Herald reported Iler had been sent back to Korea with the First Division’s 7th Cavalry Regiment. The 7th Cavalry, incidentally, was the regiment once commanded by General George Armstrong Custer of Little Bighorn fame.
The deployment was in response to a military coup against the South Korean government that began in May 1961. Iler was back in familiar territory. The 7th was stationed at Camp Custer near Munsan, where Iler had spent some time during the Korean War.
At some point after his Korean assignment, Iler retired with the rank of Sergeant Major – the army’s highest enlisted rank. In 1966 he began selling insurance for Mutual of Omaha. His last years were spent in Knoxville, Tenn., the home of his current wife and also the home of his next wife.
In Knoxville, Iler became an agent with the Reserve Life Insurance Co. of Dallas, Texas. He eventually advanced to the position of underwriter. Some time, probably in the 1970s, he entered into a relationship with a lady named Betty Jo Knisley who worked for the same company. When he and Dorothy separated is unknown to this writer.
Dale and Betty Jo were married in September 1979. Their marriage was short. He contracted an incurable disease and died on Oct. 3, 1981, at the age of 61. Betty Jo lived until February 2015. They are buried together in Dorothy Blankenship Iler passed away in 1991 at the age of 65. She also is buried in Knoxville but in a different cemetery. What became of his first wife, Betty Lou Wilson Iler, and the daughter born in 1949 is not known to this writer.
Both articles about Dale Iler were written from various newspaper accounts. Several attempts to contact Iler’s son, James, of Seymour, Tenn., and his cousin Karen Iler Wiedenfeld of Onawa, Iowa, were unsuccessful. Readers who can add to this story may contact me at [email protected].
