WWII veteran celebrated with the help of great-grandson, local high school

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - A special Veterans Day ceremony was held in the auditorium of Princeton High School, honoring 99-year-old World War II veteran Llano Bell.

Bell was told he was coming to the school to see his great-grandson sing, but when he arrived, the spotlight was on him.

“There aren’t many of these guys left, unfortunately,” School Resource Officer Joel Altman said. “I hope that what I’m doing today will be seen and people will take an extra minute to say, ‘hey, there are still some World War II guys around,’ or ‘some Korean [War] guys that are still around,’ and of course we love our Vietnam guys.”

Seaman First Class Llano Bell enlisted in the Navy at 18 and was floating in the Pacific, not far from Japan, when the Japanese surrendered in 1945.

All these years later and Bell never received the medals he was due for his service, until today.

“It feels real good,” Bell said. “I didn’t expect them. I thought [I was here for] singing or a quartet or something.”

Officer Altman got to know the World War II veteran after he was part of a team that installed a ramp at Bell’s home, allowing him to get in and out while in a wheelchair.

“I got to go up there and talk to him and sit down and look at his book from the war and talk about his service and found out that he didn’t have his medals and really anything from that era, so I wanted to reach out and see what I could do for him,” Altman said.

Friends, family and Princeton Students watched the presentation play out in the auditorium at Princeton on Veterans Day.

“Raised hand is raised hand, doesn’t matter if you’re a clerk, doesn’t matter if you were a B-2 bomber pilot,” Altman said. “Everyone that served, everybody that helps the war fighter is giving back to us, to keep us safe so we can live the way we live now.

The opportunity to honor living World War II veterans like Bell is growing increasingly rare.

According to the National World War II Museum, there are fewer than 50,000 World War II veterans remaining in the United States, with approximately 1,600 residing in Ohio.

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