ST. GEORGE — They concentrated as hard as any soldier preparing to defend their nation, trained for their missions and learned to hit targets with precision and accuracy. They periodically left their families to train with armed forces from other parts of the United States of America.

And when their service was over, they accepted veteran’s discounts and stood at baseball games when the time came to honor those who had served. But as far as medals of honor, the war they fought was unlike any in history. There weren’t any others to compare it to.

The Cold War is defined by many historians as the time spanning more than four decades — 1945 to 1991 — starting with the conclusion of World War II and ending with the military campaign Operation Desert Storm in Iraq.

The world watched as the United States ended the second world war with two atomic bombs, ending a six-year war that claimed the lives of more than 400,000 American soldiers. After the war, the race was on for many nations to build similar weapons of mass destruction. While tensions ran high between the United States and the former Soviet Union, and their respective allies, there was no large-scale fighting.

Instead, it was a war fought mostly by propaganda, build up of arsenal, espionage and government embargoes. According to United States Department of Defense casualty statistics, more American soldiers died in training missions during the Cold War-era than were killed by enemy fire. While exact numbers are not available, it is estimated more than one thousand troops died preparing for the war, while 382 deaths were recorded as “direct enemy action.”

This past Veteran’s Day, Washington City officials, along with the Utah Cold War Veterans Foundation, presented 125 Cold War veterans with medals and recognition certificates during their annual celebration for the armed forces.

In an interview with St. George News, Washington City councilman Kurt Ivie said he was proud as an American to be presenting the medals to veterans who rarely see movies made about their time in the service.

“It was almost like they had been waiting for that recognition they so well deserved,” he said. “It was a very moving experience for me because a lot of them were my friends.”

Russ Neilson served with the Utah National Guard’s 222nd Field Artillery unit, also known as the “Triple Deuce,” from 1983 to 1994. His crew took pride in being part of a battery that guard units from other states dubbed “the golden boys” due to their high rate of success and their ability to hit targets faster than most.

For most of his military service, those he trained with prepared as if an attack could happen at any time. But in his mind, he never felt any anxiety or fear of getting “called up” to fight in a war.

“You were with guys that you knew and everybody had each other’s back, and you knew it,” Neilson said. “We needed to know what we were doing, because we wanted to do it right. But, at least for me, I didn’t really ever think about what would happen if I were to go.”

That changed in summer of 1990. As the United States was preparing a military campaign in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, with Operation Desert Shield, national guard units around the nation started receiving calls. While the Triple Deuce wasn’t called into action during his time, they were later called to serve in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the Gulf War.

Although Neilson was never called to serve overseas, his mind did play through all the possible scenarios. In the first decade of his service there would be rare discussions of serving in a war, but now his comrades were discussing it a lot more frequently.

“There was the anxiety of, what happens to my job?” he said. “What happens if I have to leave my family? Those were real.”

The medal of recognition was unexpected, but greatly appreciated by Neilson, who said more than once that the men in his battalion are the reason for his training successes as a cannoneer.

“This was an outside entity saying thank you, we appreciate what you did,” he said. “I’ll be at a ballgame, or somewhere there is a standing ovation for veterans, and I’ll stand, but this was much more than that. I felt it was personal.”

In cities across America there are memorials and parks for veterans of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, both world wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and new memorials sprouting up for the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, memorializing the names of those who died in the towns they came from.

Nobody from Southern Utah died during the Cold War-era, the price military officers often pay to have their name etched in stone for future generations to remember. While planning last year’s festivities, city leaders and veterans from other wars in the community realized they still had a few soldiers to thank. And bodies they could adorn a medal of recognition.

“What we try to do here in Washington City, is to honor their service wherever it was, whatever their level of service was, whatever their commitment was — we honor that,” Ivie said. “We try very hard to give back to our veterans and let them know that we remember their sacrifices.”

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