St. Charles Vietnam veteran found God piloting fighter jets, now serves local veterans

St. Charles resident and Vietnam War veteran Dennis Larson found God while piloting jets in Vietnam. He now dedicates his time to serving other St. Charles veterans.

Larson is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He serves as a chaplain for local veterans’ organizations.

Originally from Rockford, Larson enlisted in the Marines in 1967 at the age of 20 while attending North Park College in Chicago.

Larson said he remembers the first time he thought about serving in the military was when members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars came to his junior high school in Rockford when he was about 12 years old.

Larson came from a patriotic family. His uncle served in World War II and his great-great-grandfather fought and died in the Civil War in the 12th Illinois Infantry out of Galena.

Larson said two of his childhood friends were killed in Vietnam before he enlisted and they were influential in his decision. He had planned to enlist after college, but made the decision during his junior year.

“I can remember thinking it wasn’t fair that only the draftees – maybe the less well-off kids – went to Vietnam,” Larson said. “I just felt like I should go.”

Larson got his first taste of flight training during his first tour in Vietnam. After 13 months, he returned to the U.S. for more flight training before his second deployment.

On his second tour, Larson got to choose the aircraft he would pilot. He said he chose to fly jets for the adrenaline rush.

“I just had a desire to go fast,” Larson said.

Larson was assigned to pilot an EA-6A Intruder, stationed on the USS Midway aircraft carrier and deployed to Iwakuni, Japan. He was transferred to the USS Coral Sea for another brief stint in Vietnam to assist in the evacuation of Saigon before returning to the Midway in Japan.

During his second tour, Larson flew more than 130 missions all over the Far East, mostly on training and surveillance tasks. His jet was equipped with radar for surveillance and electric countermeasures for jamming enemy radar and he was one of the last pilots to fly a fixed-wing aircraft over Vietnam during the evacuation of Saigon in 1975.

Larson spent just shy of eight years in the Marines between his time in training, flight school and his tours in Vietnam and Japan. He was discharged in November 1975.

Larson said his time in the military instilled in him a confidence he didn’t have before enlisting.

“When I first enlisted, I was very shy and quiet,” Larson said. “I’d say that was a big thing about serving in the military.

“When I joined the Marine Corps, I wanted to go to Vietnam. At the time, I was very patriotic and I wanted to serve my country,” Larson said. “I had it in my mind that we would go there to win.”

Larson said the veterans of past wars such as the ones who came to his school when he was a kid always talked about winning, so that was the mentality he had when enlisting. He said once he got to Vietnam, however, it became clear that they weren’t there to win, which was a big disappointment.

“I look back at time in the military as the highlight of my life, relative to exciting things that I was able to do,” Larson said. “I came to know the Lord while I was in the Marine Corps, which was a major plus. That may not have happened otherwise. Through my experiences there, and the fact that God protected me through some very harrowing experiences, I made a decision to follow him while flying off of an aircraft carrier.”

Upon returning to civilian life, Larson finished college at Southern Illinois University. He took a job as an electrical systems engineer at an aerospace company out of Rockford, where he worked for nearly 30 years. He said it couldn’t compare with flying jet planes.

“I can’t say I really enjoyed it. It was a challenging job, but I wouldn’t say it was very much fun.” Larson said. “Compared to flying off of aircraft carriers, it was kind of a letdown. I would have preferred to have flown off of aircraft carriers for the rest of my life, but that wasn’t to be.”

Larson and his wife have two daughters and six grandchildren. Larson retired in July 2009 and moved to St. Charles in 2018 to be closer to family. He describes St. Charles as a patriotic community.

Not long after moving to St. Charles, Larson became a member of the St. Charles veterans posts, which include the area’s VFW, AMVETS, American Legion and Vietnam Veterans of America groups. He is the chaplain for three of the groups and the service officer for all four.

Larson said he didn’t get involved with veterans organizations in Rockford, but he felt a calling while driving by the St. Charles veterans center one day. He said it was like God telling him, “You need to go in there and see how you can help.”

Shortly after, Larson went in to meet the members and found they needed someone to visit shut-ins and encourage them, which he has been doing ever since. Larson said joining the local veterans groups has been a positive experience for him.

As chaplain, he often reaches out and visits local veterans in need to talk with them about their struggles – and to pray with them, if they want.

“It just feels like a very community-serving environment,” Larson said. “It gives me opportunities to talk about spiritual things with people.”

Larson leads the center’s service team, which frequently visits nursing homes, retirement centers, hospitals and the homes of veterans who are shut-ins. He said their goal is to meet whatever needs the veterans have and encourage them to be active in the community.

Larson said they sometimes go to help veterans signed up for benefits and services such as disability or health care and other times it’s just to encourage them and pray with them.

Larson balances his time between working with the veterans center and spending time with his family. In his free time, he enjoys riding his bike on the trail along the Fox River.