Bill ”Bobo” Bohannon is not one to stand on ceremony. Least of all when it’s in honor of himself.

Neither do his friends. They whooped, they hollered, they whistled and yipped their congratulations Friday during a normally-solemn medal ceremony in Bend, that was anything but.

Then the crowd needled their friend with the same good-natured irreverence Bohannon had greeted them with.

The World War II veteran, who received his long-overdue decorations Friday, guffawed from his seat when U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden announced his Good Conduct Medal, finding the characterization amusing. ”Senator, that one’s a miracle,” Bohannon shouted, and the crowd roared in laughter, fully agreeing.

When Bohannon stood up to accept the medal and three others, he was struck dumb for maybe the first time in his life. He shyly gripped the framed ribbons while staring wonderingly at his applauding friends. He didn’t care for the attention.

”Ok, that’s enough,” he said. ”I don’t know what to say.”

”Oh, b.s.!” shouted one friend from the crowd, and ”That’s a first!” said another.

And then things were back to normal.

It was just another morning full of insults, reminiscing, and laughter – and sprinkled in some conferring of honors – as Bohannon gathered with longtime buddies to receive his medals at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1643 on 4th Street. The journey to the ceremony started 60 years ago – when Bohannon set off for the Italian theater – and received its final push this spring, when his wife of 41 years called Wyden’s secretary.

”All hell broke loose, and before I knew it, I was corralled,” recalled Bohannon, 81, of the infamous call that set in motion the day’s festivities.

”I just thought he’d like to have them,’ said Bettie Bohannon of her husband’s decorations, ”but he didn’t care.” She pushed forward anyways, determined to get badges waylaid when the Army Air Corps crew chief caught malaria toward war’s end. The disease kept Bobo Bohannon from returning home with his unit, and his records were misplaced. Wyden’s office found them.

Bettie Bohannon thought the medals – which also commemorated troops’ victory and the veteran’s service in the American and European-African-Middle Eastern campaigns – would simply be stuffed in a small envelope and mailed. Friday’s ceremony shocked her.

”I just can’t believe it,” she said.

Bobo Bohannon, not one for the limelight, engaged in self-deprecatory jokes and made fun of being honored as ”a big-shot hero” before things started Friday. Raised on a dairy farm in Des Moines, Iowa, and a union plumber after the war, Bohannon could hardly see what the fuss was about.

”I never have been worth a dam,” he said with a wink and a grin. When asked how it felt to receive the medals after so long, he said: ”I’m bamboozled.”

As chief of a ground crew of airplane mechanics in Naples, Bohannon serviced bombers, fighters and DC3s by day and test piloted them by night. He routinely crossed the Mediterranean into Casablanca, transporting supplies, ammo and wounded soldiers. His travels included some unusual trips, including a flight into Belgrade to bring Yugoslav leader Marshall Tito a jeep, and a shopping spree for the officer’s club in Naples.

”I flew a big mahogany bar back from Casablanca for (them),” he said. ”I had to cut it in two.”

Bohannon recalled how, when arriving in Belgrade, he’d taxi in under a huge, camouflage tent. Machine guns lined each side of the strip for a mile, but a Red Cross gal always lightened things up, he said. For some reason, she took a liking to Iowan, and always brought him a plate of fried chicken.

”One day the pilot (with me) says, How come you’s the only one who gets fried chicken?’ and I said, ‘Sir, I’m the best looking,’” Bohannon joked.

For his first months in Naples, Bohannon enjoyed good times in the bucolic countryside, living with an Italian family that played host to him and five soldiers. One day, he happened upon a crate-full of frozen steaks at the docks. ”Momma,” the Italian family’s matriarch, turned the find into a feast for the entire neighborhood: ”We thought we’d died and went to heaven,” the vet said.

But as an officer in the Italian theater, Bohannon also later witnessed some of World War II’s bloodiest combat. The Allies starting advancing up the spine of Italy’s boot in 1943, battling German troops led by brilliant tactician Albert Kesselring. Fought in rugged, mountainous terrain and often appalling conditions, the campaign brought heavy Allied losses.

Bohannon, who entered the war when he was just 22, is understandably quiet when asked about war’s darker side.

”I can’t talk about some of the bad stuff,” he said softly, adding later, ”I’m glad it’s over. I lost 17 buddies from high school in that war. I wish (the government) wouldn’t do it anymore.”

Nephew Marc Volz, who drove his Harley Davidson up from Auburn for the occasion, said Bohannon’s bad memories will die with him.

”Like most combat veterans, he’s very, very quiet about what happened,” Volz said. ”He’s never talked to me about any of the gruesomeness stuff.”

While Friday’s ceremony brought back both good memories and bad, Bohannon said, the veteran focused on the good and basked in the company of friends he hadn’t seen in years. He was awed by the many that turned out – at least 30. Bohannon took particular delight in a group of U.S. Forest Service employees he worked with in the 1980s, when he took a job as handyman for a silviculture lab in Aubrey Butte.

”Hey, Bo, how are ya? You’re still vertical, at least – that’s good,” said one former colleague as the group greeted the veteran Friday.

”You smell good,” ribbed another, ”you took a shower this morning!”

USFS Ecologist Gregg Riegel said Bohannon has been an inspiration for him in the way the senior has embraced growing old by making it fun.

”This is just the most awesome thing, to be able to see this,” Riegel said.

The sentiment was obviously shared by all who attended a ceremony that was by turns touching, hilarious, sobering and always powerful. A reenactment of a rite performed by countless others, the occasion was still unrepeatable and somewhere, in time’s ripple, left its own fingerprint in history.

”I’m just glad you’re not on the ballot against me. You are popular,” said Senator Wyden, infected with the crowd’s goofiness, as he closed the ceremony. ”Well, it’s clear that Central Oregon loves Bill Bohannon.”

And, like a congregation in a gospel church on Sunday, the audience bobbed their heads up and down, nodding and shouting their assent.

”Absolutely.”

”You bet.”

Jeanene Harlick can be reached at 541-408-2606 or at jharlick@bendbulletin.com.