By MELANIE POOLE / Special to the Reporter

The Veteran of the Week is sponsored by the National Veterans Shrine and Register of Honor at the American Village — honoring America’s veterans and telling the stories of their service and sacrifice for the cause of liberty.

“The American Village is pleased to join the Shelby County Reporter in recognizing Sgt. John Craig Butler Sr. as Veteran of the Week,” American Village founder and CEO Tom Walker said. “He is representative of the hundreds of thousands of Alabamians who have risked it all for the sake of our country and its freedom. To all veterans we owe a debt we can never fully repay.”

Visit the website, Veteransregisterofhonor.com, today and add your loved ones to the Register of Honor. Help us honor, recognize, respect and remember our country’s veterans.

Here are highlights about this week’s Veteran of the Week: John Butler, Sr. was born in Bethel Springs, Tennessee, in 1919. He enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1942 and served until 1944, earning the rank of Technical Sergeant. He served stateside in Mississippi, and overseas in the United Kingdom.

In His Own Words: “The trip to Abbeville lived up to its fame. A shell exploded near our plane, disabling the #3 engine. That engine was vulnerable because it controlled the hydraulic fluid that affected the wing flaps and braking system. The nose wheel would not come down. I had to crank that nose wheel. While I was doing this the plane had to circle for two hours to burn gasoline to make it lighter. We had to drop our bombs on the countryside. We made the landing fine.”

Melanie Poole is Communications Officer for the American Village and can be reached at MPoole@americanvillage.org.