Another cherished veteran of America’s Greatest Generation died April 9, 2010, in Orlando, Fla.: Kenneth Carl “Casey” Baier, retired Chief Warrant Officer-4, U.S. Navy, age 86.

Casey will be remembered in Oak Harbor as an elder in the Whidbey Presbyterian Church. He was instrumental in the purchase of the current church building and in the construction of the church’s Heritage Hall. Casey also invested himself in the Oak Harbor Lions Club where he served in various offices, including president. He also headed the annual Christmas tree sales for many years.

Casey was born May 16, 1923, in Chatfield, Minn., the only son of Carl W. Baier and Vera Fergusson Baier. Casey and his older sister, Marie, moved with their parents to the still-frontier town of Cody, Wyo., in 1926, where Carl Baier began work in a garage as one of Chevrolet’s early trained mechanics. Cody was experiencing both an oil boom and the construction of a dam on the Shoshone River, so work was plentiful.

During his four years at Cody High School, Casey lettered in basketball, football and track, and studied when he had to. He worked in Yellowstone Park during the summers for Morrison-Knudsen Construction Company, which built many of the park’s roads. He worked as a kitchen flunky at first, and then a flagman.

Following graduation from high school in 1941, Casey and his father went to Billings, Mont., where Casey joined the U.S. Navy. World War II hadn’t started yet, but Casey was interested in a career as an electrician with the Navy. A Navy recruiter had visited Cody High School during Casey’s senior year and convinced Casey that this was a good way to get the training he needed.

During World War II, Casey served in the South Pacific from 1942 to 1944, in Guadalcanal, the Fiji Islands and the Russell Islands. He worked as an “artificer,” the term for someone — in his case — with an electrician’s skills. He had also completed a gunnery course and served as a replacement tail gunner, on occasion, when tail gunners were in short supply. He never told his mother about this dangerous duty; she didn’t find out until the war ended.

Casey used to joke about his membership in the “Cody Navy.” Several other high school classmates had also joined the U.S. Navy, figuring that this was a good, patriotic way for landlocked Wyoming boys to see the sea.

In 1944, after 20 months in the South Pacific, Casey was rotated stateside and eventually assigned to N.A.S. Banana River — near Cocoa Beach, Fla., which had a seaplane base. His rating was Aviation Electrician First Class. It was at Banana River where Casey met Dorothy Sheehan, who joined the Navy in 1943, graduated tops in her class in gunnery school, and became the first woman in the U.S. Navy to drop a bomb from a naval aircraft. As a bombardier, her duty was the train the men who dropped the bombs overseas.

During a brief leave, Casey and Dorothy were married in Boise, Idaho, on April 11, 1945. After 64 years of marriage, Dorothy died Feb. 18, 2009, in Oak Harbor. The Baiers were the parents of three daughters: Karen Deo (Orlando, Fla.); Carla Kelly (Wellington, Utah); and Lynn Turner (Orlando, Fla.).

Following World War II, Casey – now a chief – stayed in the Navy. His electrical skills expanded into the field of aviation electronics – avionics. Throughout their marriage, the Baiers were a typical Navy family, moving frequently and living at various times in Guam, California, Alaska, Florida, Japan, Georgia, Virginia, Texas and Oak Harbor, where Casey retired in 1971. He remained in Oak Harbor until April of 2009, when he moved to Orlando to be near two of his daughters.

During his Navy career, Casey went through many promotions, retiring as a Chief Warrant Officer-4. He used to joke that if he had been commissioned in the Navy as an ensign, with all his promotions, he’d have been Chief of Naval Operations when he retired. He served honorably in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Casey’s daughters always considered it a rare privilege to be part of a Navy family, and the children of such an excellent father and mother, who served their country so well.

In addition to his three daughters, Casey leaves behind three sons-in-law, 10 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. Following Casey’s cremation, his ashes will be mingled with his wife’s, and they will be scattered in the Atlantic Ocean off Cocoa Beach, Fla., where the South Pacific veteran and the lady bombardier met 66 years ago, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

“Eternal Father, strong to save / whose arms hath bound the restless wave,/ who bids the mighty ocean deep / its own appointed limits keep./ Oh, hear us when we cry to thee / for those in peril on the sea.”

Thanks, Dad. We daughters won the parent lottery.