By Tom Fruehling
Freelance writer
Steve Power’s dying wish was to help raise the American flags over the Cedar Rapids downtown bridges just one more time.
For the first time in more than 20 years, he missed putting them up for the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
“Yeah, and some of my vet buddies said they just didn’t look right,” he jokes.
Told in January that a brain tumor would probably kill him in a matter of weeks, he never figured he’d make it to the Fourth of July.
He is paralyzed on his left side, and his right arm and leg are pretty shaky, too. He’s blind in one eye and losing sight in the other. When he’s not in bed at the Manor Care Nursing Home, he’s in a wheelchair.
But his mind is right. And his patriotic spirit is as high as ever.
In fact, Tyne says, even though Power lost his home and everything in it in last year’s flood, he was more concerned with seeing what he could do for other flood victims, especially veterans who were down and out.
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Now do you know why I love these guys so much? He cared more about his neighbors than himself.
