The ghosts of war never left Claston Bond

DODGE CENTER, Minn. -- His name was Claston E. Bond. But everyone called him Classy.

If an 80-something in a 60-something Marine Corps uniform can look like a million bucks, that's how Classy looked when the National World War II Memorial was dedicated in Washington in 2004. Amid a sea of soldiers from "the Greatest Generation" gathered for the occasion, Staff Sgt. Classy Bond, sharp as a sword in his old dress blues, cut quite the dashing figure.

Heads turned as he moved through the crowd on a motorized scooter. When he stopped to rest under a tree, pretty girls came up to kiss his cheeks, new Marines fresh out of boot camp stopped to thank him for his service, and others stared, trying to figure out who he was.

"I think he's a celebrity," one woman kept saying. "I should really get his autograph."

For an old farm boy from Dodge Center, Minn., it was a great day, one of well-deserved honors and recognition. But there had been a lot of days that weren't so great leading up to it. Classy Bond, after fighting four years in the Pacific, including Iwo Jima, Guam and other hellholes that are forgotten, never got out of the war.

He carried it with him until the end of a roller-coaster life that included the love of a good woman, solid family and friends. And decades of torment from depression, bi-polar disorder and the ghosts of war.

Classy was a truck driver, a wiry 5-foot-8 Leatherneck who loved jokes, wrote poetry and hymns, and was a teetotaller. And wrestled with demons.

At his funeral Wednesday, in the Seventh Day Baptist Church where he worshiped all his life, the dark side of Classy's humble journey was discussed honestly. And the upside, too.

There was much of both.

Classy's muscles amazed Dodge Center's kids for years. He could lift an 80-pound truck wrench with a single finger, and hold it for a minute. Kids asked to feel his biceps, and if that wasn't enough to impress them, Classy would adopt a strong-man pose and tell them to punch him in the gut.

"He'd say, 'Go ahead, as hard as you want,'" recalled Burt Bonser, 56, who remembers Classy running the warming house at the town ice rink. "But he was solid as a rock, and it'd always end up hurting your hand. Then he'd just laugh."

He met the love of his life, Seili Jalkenen, at a Rochester roller skating rink after the war. Naturally, he always told people, "We've been going around and around ever since."

Seili was a Dodge Center girl, and the high school Salutatorian, just like Classy had been a few years earlier. When they met, she was a nursing student at the Mayo Clinic, and was being pursued by a doctor. But Classy won her, and kept her for 51 years of married life, four children, seven grandchildren and a wide circle of admirers.

Seili died at Christmas, 1999. The year before, in a poem called "How It All Began," written for their 50th anniversary, Classy told how he had been smitten at the roller rink:

"The doctor had a new Chevy/ Classy's Ford was 14 years old/ But when Seili did smile at Classy/ You could tag poor Classy 'sold.'"

But Classy's war never ended.

"He brought the war with him to the end," Classy's son, Bill, said after they sounded taps over Classy in Riverside Cemetery. "He was just a farm boy, full of enthusiasm, when he enlisted [at 19] to uphold his country. But he left a lot of what he believed behind."

After one landing, Classy walked among the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers and was transfixed by the face of one of the fallen, struck by the realization that this, too, was somebody's son. For years after the war, he would say that when nations fight, their leaders ought to be given clubs and put on a desert island, until one emerged.

Bill, 59, was the only boy among Classy's children. He had to be the man of the family during times when Classy was deep in depression, or in the manic phase of his illness, when he would put on his uniform and wander around town, barking orders like the sergeant he had been, shouting out salty cadences, scaring people.

Days later, he would come home, exhausted. Bill would make sure his dad's gun collection was safe, and the sheriff would come and take him into protective custody. Over the years, there were many hospitals and many scares. But friends and family hung in there with Classy. And Classy hung on.

"When I was a kid, I came to hate the war," says Bill. "I wasn't proud of Dad's service; I was embarrassed. It meant hardships for my family."

Then came the dedication of the WWII Memorial. Classy, 82 at the time, moved through the crowd like ticker tape was about to fall. It should have.

"I know he's famous," one woman kept saying as she watched Classy stand at attention for the national anthem.

Bill Bond, who lives in Forest Lake, saw the look on that woman's face. And then, he saw his dad in a different light.

No, he told the woman. That's not someone famous.

He's my dad. And he's just a Marine.

There was nothing "just" about being in World War II.

That day was the first time Bill Bond told his father how proud he was of him, of what he did, what he endured, and who he was, despite the pain.

Marine Staff Sgt. Claston E. Bond died Sunday. He was 85.

Among the poems Classy left were these handwritten lines, perhaps paraphrased from another author, that he addressed to his departed love, Seili:

"Should you go first and I remain/ One thing I'll have you do/ Walk slowly down that long, long trail/ For soon I'll follow you."

Nick Coleman • ncoleman@startribune.com