MASSILLON — Larry Glasgow Jr. joined the U.S. Army at 18 because he needed full-time work. Four decades later, the Sugar Creek Township veteran who was wounded in a Scud missile attack in Desert Storm is still working — as a volunteer — and Stark County is honoring him for it, according to The Independent.
Glasgow, 61, has been tapped as Veteran of the Year for 2026 by a nomination committee of the Stark County Veterans Service Commission, The Independent reported. He will be honored during a Nov. 11 ceremony, and the honor carries him forward: by earning it, Glasgow will be nominated for the Ohio veteran of the year award in 2027, according to The Independent.
“I’m honored they put it out there. It means a lot,” Glasgow told The Independent. “I’m a blue-collar guy. … a 100% volunteer.” His motto, he told The Independent, is “Vets still serving America.” “It never stops for me. I feel an obligation to do it,” Glasgow told The Independent.
Glasgow, a Fairless High School graduate, enrolled in the Army’s delayed entry program fresh out of high school in 1984, in tough economic times, The Independent reported. “The military was my window to get employed,” Glasgow told The Independent, noting there was family history in the armed forces as well. He spent about seven years as an active-duty soldier, serving stateside and overseas in places like Korea, according to The Independent.
The Army called him back in early 1991 for Operation Desert Storm, when it needed truck drivers, The Independent reported. “My job was to haul fuel and water to the front lines,” Glasgow told The Independent. On Feb. 25, 1991, while at his barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Glasgow was injured in a Scud missile attack on a building that housed more than 100 U.S. troops; 28 soldiers were killed, and Glasgow suffered severe leg injuries from shrapnel, according to The Independent.
What Glasgow recalls most about that day is not his own injuries, The Independent reported, but his “battle buddy,” Army soldier Wayne Hicks. “I watched him go into a burning building and save five people,” Glasgow told The Independent. “He inspired me to go back and help (when I was injured). … (but) I needed to be rescued again.”
Service did not end when the uniform came off. Glasgow is a current officer and past commander of American Legion Post Weimer Widder No. 549 in Beach City, has volunteered as an Eagle and Boy Scout leader, a VFW chaplain and a local food bank truck driver, and is a longtime member of the Disabled American Veterans, according to The Independent. In 2018 he marched in the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, D.C., helping raise awareness for a Desert Storm memorial on the National Mall, The Independent reported.
The honors have arrived together this month. On Nov. 6, Glasgow was inducted into Fairless High School’s Hall of Honor along with three other alumni, according to The Independent. After his military service he returned to his family’s farm in Sugar Creek and worked 35 years as a Local 92 Teamsters semi-truck driver before retiring, The Independent reported. He and his wife, Michele, have been married 41 years and share two children, Mitchell, 25, and Jessica, 20.
The county praised exactly that record. “Larry Glasgow represents the enduring spirit of service that we seek to recognize through the Stark County Veteran of the Year program,” De Ann Williams, executive director of the veterans service commission, said in a statement reported by The Independent. “We are honored to recognize Larry on Veterans Day and celebrate the continued impact he has made in our community since leaving the ranks. His commitment to service continues to make a difference in the lives of countless comrades and their families,” Williams said in the statement reported by The Independent.
Glasgow’s story is part of a wider Stark and northeast Ohio pattern of neighbors investing in one another — the same spirit NewsForce247 covered when the Ohio National Guard broke ground on a $32 million readiness center for the soldiers who serve part-time close to home, and when a $1 million gift expanded children’s behavioral health care in the Mahoning Valley.
What happens next is the ceremony itself: Glasgow will be honored at the Greater Canton Veterans Council’s Veterans Day observance at 10 a.m. on Nov. 11 at The Ponds Venue, 10547 Manchester Ave. SW, in Sugar Creek Township, according to The Independent — and then, in 2027, his name goes forward as Stark County’s nominee for Ohio veteran of the year.
Photo: Andy Hemmer, CC BY-SA