Army veteran Jerry Ilc leads veterans club at Crest Hill retirement community

At 75, Vietnam Army veteran Jerry Ilc proudly leads the veterans club at Carillon Lakes retirement community in Crest Hill, where Ilc has lived for the past six years.

The club, which started with “just a handful of members,” now has 100 members, 20 associate members and will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2024, Ilc said.

The associates are mainly spouses who help during events, Ilc said. But associate members also include Crest Hill Mayor Ray Soliman and his wife Vicky.

In September, Soliman emceed the veterans club’s 22nd Memorial Remembrance Ceremony recognizing the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ilc said club members especially appreciate the associate members.

“Because the people who aren’t veterans care about us,” Ilc said. “And they come and they help with our get-togethers. And they say, ‘Thank you; thank you for your service.’ And that feels good to us veterans.”

Ilc said regular club meetings are bimonthly, with extra planning meetings held in advance of special events.

Regular meetings consist of prayer, reading the mission statement, roll call, club business and upcoming activities, and a discussion of any veteran-related events in the news, Ilc said.

“We have a memorial squad that goes to Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery and represents our club,” Ilc said. “We also discuss flag ceremonies.”

For instance, the veterans club typically hosts a simple ceremony for National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day on Dec. 7.

“We have a simple meeting around the American flag,” Ilc said. “We lower it to half-staff, and then [me] and my secretary Bill Thomas will say a few words in remembrance of Pearl Harbor.”

Ilc said the veterans club hosts annual appreciation days at its clubhouse for Lockport firefighters and Crest Hill and Will County police officers.

The club also hosts a Memorial Day parade and 9/11 ceremony for its residents, Ilc said.

[ Crest Hill retirement community honored its 80 veterans with Memorial Day parade ]

Club dues are $15 a year, and the money funds activities and supplies donations to Honor Flight Chicago and Tunnels to Towers Foundation.

“Some of our veterans come back from wars and aren’t appreciated,” Ilc said.

In fact, Ilc – an Army veteran who served in the Army from 1970 to 1972 and overseas in Vietnam from 1971 to 1972 – said he was one of those unappreciated veterans. But after taking an Honor Flight on Sept. 20, he is “totally healed,” Ilc said.

The people who aren’t veterans care about us. And they come and they help with our get-togethers. And they say, ‘Thank you; thank you for your service.’ And that feels good to us veterans.”

—  Jerry Ilc, president of the Carillon Lakes veterans club

The trip had plenty of “tear-jerking moments,” he said. And the celebration upon his return was “mind-boggling.”

“You not only get to visit the monuments in Washington, D.C., you get to learn the story behind them,” Ilc said. “It’s really impressive.”