NASHVILLE — In a life stuffed with milestones, Irving Locker celebrated a brand new, sudden one final week: He turned a printed songwriter.
At some point earlier than his one hundred and first birthday, “If Freedom Was Free” was launched by Massive Machine Label Group and CreatiVets, the Nashville-based nonprofit that helps veterans work by their traumas by constructing one thing new by the humanities.
CreatiVets teamed Locker, a World Struggle II veteran who landed at Utah Seaside on D-Day, with Texas singer-songwriter Bart Crow and duo Johnny and Heidi Bulford, who additionally sing on the monitor. The refrain – “If freedom was free, there wouldn’t be a mountain of metal and men under Normandy” – contains the message Locker has utilized in lectures from school rooms to the White Home. Freedom, he says, will not be free. Folks ought to be grateful for it and for individuals who make it attainable.
“I have to talk about things like that,” he says. “I got nothing to gain. But people have to know and appreciate the fact that they’re living because of men who died. It comes from the heart, not the lips.”
Locker, who now lives in The Villages, Florida, stated the possibility to write down a tune was an “unbelievable” thrill, one which he by no means dreamed attainable. It means much more to him as a result of music is such an necessary a part of his life.
He stated he and his spouse of 77 years, Bernice, nonetheless exit dancing typically – nonetheless doing the jitterbug and the cha-cha as they’ve for many years.
“You should see me on the floor even now,” stated Locker, including that he is aware of how fortunate he’s to be alive and lively when so many different veterans are usually not.
“To be very honest with you, I was never conscious of God until the war,” he stated. “But I came so close to dying that I learned how to thank God and use the simple phrase ‘But for the grace of God go I.’”
