CHESTER “CHET” ROHN, I’45, WORLD WAR II veteran who served in the 56th Armored Engineers Battalion of the 11th Armored Division, and fought in the Battle of the Bulge in Patton’s Army, was honored on September 15th at Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium. The occasion was the football clash between the Wisconsin Badgers and the Brigham Young Cougars. While the Badgers were not successful on the field (21-24), it was a great day for Brother Rohn, as he was honored on the field and received an official game coin from the UW athletic department.
In talking with the actives at the Lodge, Chet explained that his “job” during the war was “taking up mines, building little bridges and machine-gunning people.” He finished the first semester of his sophomore year of college at The University of Wisconsin before he joined the Army on his 19th birthday. His final act in the war at age 21 was liberating Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria, which the 11th Armored Division discovered on 5 May 1945. After the war, he returned to Wisconsin and graduated in 1949 with a degree in Economics.
Brother Rohn lives in McKinney, Texas, and has attended Chi Psi events in Dallas in recent years. He and his daughter, Mally Baum, watched the game from the 50-yard line box of Beverly and Wade Fetzer, I’59. Thanks to Wade, Steve Habat, B’11, and John Horneck, I’90, for assisting with the arrangements.
