Veteran repaid with yardwork

Kindness takes many forms. At a house in the Spokane Valley, it looked like pruned hedges and a leaf-free lawn.

Fred Chindahl, 83, has lived in his green house since 1955. No fewer than six trees tower over the property and a row of shrubs stands guard along the yard’s perimeter. After Chindahl’s wife, Phyllis, died two years ago, it has become more difficult to keep up with the housework.

But an act of kindness Chindahl made three years ago is being repaid every spring and, now, on Veterans Day, too.

Friends Mike Nilson and Jason Barry, both 19, and Mike’s father, John, spent Thursday doing yard work for Chindahl, a veteran who served in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1942 to 1945. John Nilson, who’s also a vet, brings the Latter Day Saints-sponsored Scout Troop 415 to Chindahl’s home every spring to clean up the mess left by winter.

Barry and the Nilsons were touched when Chindahl, representing the Elks, presented the young men with U.S. flags during their Court of Honor, the ceremony in which they received the Boy Scouts’ highest rank – Eagle Scouts. The flags had once flown over the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

“This is kind of a way of paying him back,” Barry said.

The men said they learned to be loyal and helpful as scouts and that their action Thursday was out of respect for Chindahl.

Chindahl was grateful for their help.

“They don’t know how much I appreciate that,” he said, sitting in the sunshine on his front patio.

Chindahl said too often the public hears about the trouble young people get themselves into.

“These kids, I don’t think they get enough recognition for what they do,” he said of Nilson and Barry and other people like them.

During World War II, Chindahl was stationed in Puget Sound to protect the homeland. After the war, the Spokane Valley native moved back home with his wife. Phyllis was a pharmacist and Fred studied business at Gonzaga University, so together they ran Greenacres Pharmacy for 38 years.

Chindahl worries about the soldiers serving today, but he understands their motivation for joining the military.

“They’re in there because they want to protect their country,” Chindahl said. “You have to respect them for that.”