By Jill Fennema

Pictured: Rolly with the car he drove through the Master’s parade at Augusta, Georgia.

Rolly Van Nieuwenhuyzen graduated from Pipestone High School in 1958. He was one of three children born to Pete and Johanna Van Nieuwenhuyzen. His brother Peter, Jr., also served from 1953 to 1955. Their sister’s name is Audrey Veldhuizen. 

Rolly was drafted in 1963. He was working as a farm hand for his dad and other area farmers at the time. He still lived at home, but was dating Rose Prins from Leota. Incidentally, her parents were also named Pete and Johanna. Rose was only 16 years old when they started dating, and Rolly was 22. 

Rolly left for basic training on Sept. 5, 1963. He would spend the next eight weeks at Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo., as did most of the new recruits back then. 

“Basic did not seem so bad,” Rolly recalls. “I was used to hard work.” Rolly also recalls that he got along with everyone okay, including his drill sergeants. 

Right before he graduated basic training, however, there was an incident. The day before graduation, the platoon sergeant wanted to use Rolly as an example and demonstrate self-defense moves. 

Rolly had gone into the army in fairly good shape, but the army had “beefed” him up and he had put on 30 pounds. So when the sergeant tried to pick him up, he was not successful and ended up dropping Rolly on his shoulder. Turned out Rolly had a broken collar bone, but he did not want to go to the infirmary, or end up not staying with the unit he was with, so he just pretended to be fine.

In the graduation parade, they had to carry their rifles against their left shoulder rather than their right and it was excruciating for Rolly. 

A few days later, he was sent to Ft. Gordon, Georgia. Prior to arriving, the other more experienced soldiers had warned them not to volunteer for anything. So the morning they arrived in Ft. Gordon, when the drill sergeant asked for anyone that had experience as a squad leader or a platoon guide, Rolly didn’t volunteer right away, even though he had been a squad leader. 

When the drill sergeant indicated that he might as well volunteer because they could always look up the records and know who was a squad leader, Rolly finally raised his hand. They sent him off to Leadership Training School for a few days. One of the requirements of that school was that the men in that group had to do five pullups before they went into the mess hall. Rolly managed to make it look like he was using both arms but was really just doing a one-armed pullup each time. 

Eventually, his shoulder started to heal and feel better. He did get a few extra days of rest when President John F. Kennedy was shot at Dallas on November 22, 1963. The shock of that event was acutely felt by the military. 

The next part of Rolly’s military experience was advanced training. He was chosen to be in the military police.