Army veteran honored with flight to Washington, D.C.

Marlo Peterson, right, will be acting as veteran Roger Blessum’s guardian on an upcoming honor flight to Washington, D.C.
U.S. Army veteran Roger Blessum was selected to go on the trip of a lifetime on an honor flight to Washington, D.C., on May 6, to see national monuments and the Changing of the Guard at Arlington National Cemetery.
Blessum’s nephew, Marlo Peterson, of Kasota, Minnesota, will act as his guardian on the honor flight.
With a 5 a.m. flight alongside around 189 other participants, the group will see national monuments and Arlington National Cemetery. They will return to the Twin Cities the same day.
“Being in Washington D.C., there’s so much to see. I’ve spent some time out there when I was on the Bloomington (Minnesota) City Council. We had a meeting out there every March with the National League of Cities. At that time, I was able to see the Vietnam Wall which is very, very impressive. They’ve added more things now that I’m looking forward to seeing and also, of course, Arlington, which is, you know, a treasure,” Blessum said.
Blessum was born and raised in Rugby where he met his wife, Jan Anderson. The couple married at Bethany Lutheran Church in Rugby and shortly thereafter Blessum joined the U.S. Army in October 1956.
Blessum began basic training at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and was eventually deployed to Fort Gordon, Georgia, for signal school. He was then assigned to the 17th Signal Battalion in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Blessum later left the Army and went back to Rugby, but shortly returned to the military to serve in Vietnam until he was discharged again in 1968. While he was serving in Vietnam, his wife moved to Bloomington, Minnesota, to be closer to her family. Upon his second discharge, Roger joined her in Minnesota.
His civilian career started as an independent insurance agent, which he worked at until his retirement in 2011.
Blessum started his political career by serving on commissions for the City of Bloomington and eventually ended up on the Bloomington City Council for 12 years, roughly from 1979-89. He was on the council that approved the development of the Mall of America.
The couple had four children, Lance, Joni, Jennifer and Lance. Lance Blessum would go on to join the U.S. Marine Corps at age 18.
As they grew in age, Roger and Jan Blessum moved to a townhouse in Prior Lake, Minnesota, that included yard maintenance so they could spend more time at their cabin in Spooner, Wisconsin. Sadly, Jan Blessum passed away in 2022 due to complications with Alzheimer’s Disease.
Roger Blessum is a beloved member of his family, his great-niece, Andrea Blessum, of Bismarck, wrote a book that detailed his life called, “Count your Blessums.”