WWII vet from South Beloit visits war memorial a week before his 98th birthday

BELOIT — Just a week short of his 98th birthday, John DeCori of South Beloit, Illinois was finally able to visit the World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington this month, that was built to honor him and the 16 million American men and women who served in that war.

DeCori was part of the 2024 VetsRoll program conceived in 2010 by Mark Finnegan and his brother John, co-owners of Finnegans’ RV Center, Inc. in South Beloit.

VetsRoll has grown from a caravan of a few RVs to this year’s trip consisting of 10 busloads of 220 veterans and their attendants. DeCori was accompanied by his granddaughter, Tracy Bliss.

“The trip was just wonderful,” DeCori said after Vets Roll returned to Beloit’s Eclipse Center on Wednesday, May 22. “I was simply chocked up.I am so happy and proud to have been included in Vets Roll. All my thanks go to Mark Finnegan and his team who go out of their way to make this happen.”

VetsRoll was created to honor veterans like DeCori who “all gave and some gave their all.”

DeCori fought with the 28th Army Infantry Division as a machine gunner. He survived the Battle of the Bulge German offensive in the Ardennes region near the Belgium-Luxembourg border and went on the cross the Rhine River as Allied troops closed in on Berlin.

DeCori’s division was credited with holding the line at Bastogne until Patton’s Third Army armored units and the 101st Airborne Division could break through and finally defeat the Panzer armored units in the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest battle of World War II. It was the last German offense on the Western Front.