‘These Veterans Are My Brothers’

Nov. 1, 2024

A North Carolina Knight and Army veteran has dedicated his life to serving God and country

By Christina Lee Knauss

Nov. 1, 2024

Lewis Reid gives a patriotic salute in Salisbury National Cemetery Annex — Lewis Reid, a member of Bishop William G. Curlin Assembly 3158 in Concord, N.C., gives a patriotic salute in Salisbury National Cemetery Annex after speaking at the funeral of a fellow veteran Oct. 3. Reid, who attends dozens of military funerals a month, has logged more than 25,000 volunteer hours in service to veterans. (Photo by Faith Massey)

As a gentle breeze pushed clouds across a pale blue sky, U.S. Army veteran Lewis Reid stood in front of grieving family members at the Salisbury National Cemetery Annex on a September afternoon. His face solemn, Reid began a speech he’s made thousands of times before, his voice with its distinctive North Carolina lilt offering words of consolation and patriotic pride at the beginning of a military funeral for an Air Force veteran.

“Another veteran has been called to the high command,” Reid said. “He’s gone to meet the greatest commander of all. We come to honor his memory.”

This is a ritual Reid, even at age 91, still performs several times a week, often attending two or three burials a day to memorialize comrades in arms and present burial flags to their loved ones. The ceremonies are one of the most visible elements of more than 25,000 hours of volunteer service hours that Reid has logged over the past 59 years for the Department of Veterans Affairs and local veterans’ groups, including Rowan County Veterans Honors Guard.

Along with all those hours spent serving veterans, Reid is an active member of St. Joseph Council 12167 in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and Bishop William G. Curlin Assembly 3158 in Concord. In January, the assembly honored him with a Lifetime Patriotic Service Award for his work with veterans, with some Knights driving halfway across the state to attend the ceremony at St. James Church in Concord.

He doesn’t do the work for honors or attention, however; he feels that God has called him to continue serving in this way.

“I’m old enough to retire, but the man upstairs told me not to quit,” Reid said with a smile. “I just love doing this. These veterans are my brothers.”

FROM KANNAPOLIS TO KOREA — AND BACK

Reid was born Aug. 20, 1933, and grew up near Kannapolis, North Carolina. His parents had both African American and Native American heritage — Cherokee on his father’s side and Lumbee, a tribe based in southeastern North Carolina, on his mother’s side. The family was proud of their roots and worked to document their ancestors, including an uncle on his father’s side named John Wallace, who was said to have lived to age 118.

Reid’s life of dedication to the military started when he was drafted into the Army at age 18, immediately after high school, during the Korean War. He was sent to Korea but saw only two weeks of wartime service there before the conflict ended. He was then transferred to Fairbanks, Alaska, where he worked as a radar technician as well as a cook.

Sgt. Lewis Reid is pictured at Fort Lewis in Washington circa 1954. (Photo courtesy of Lewis Reid)

“We had to watch the border from there and make sure Russian planes didn’t try to cross the border,” he recalled. “It was the era when we were protecting the United States from [Nikita] Khrushchev and the Soviet Union.”

Reid was raised in a time when there weren’t many Catholics in North Carolina and very few African American Catholics. He attended Protestant churches growing up but was introduced to the Catholic faith in the Army.

“I learned that the Church was teaching what Jesus was really about, and so I took catechism instruction and became Catholic,” he said.

When he left military service in 1956, Reid returned to North Carolina and earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina A&T State University, a historically Black college in Greensboro. In 1960, he took part, with other North Carolina A&T students, in the famous lunch counter sit-ins calling for integration at the Woolworth’s in Greensboro.

“Back then I kept on thinking God is going to make things different one day,” Reid recalled. “And he started talking to me and has kept on talking to me ever since.”

Reid’s strong faith inspired one of his favorite sayings: “Trust in God, and you’ve got it made!”

When he returned to Kannapolis, Reid started attending St. Joseph Church and opened his own radio and television repair shop. He also built a house and married his sweetheart, Thelma — a union that lasted 64 years until her death in 2018. The couple had four children, six grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.

Drawn to the Order’s principles of charity, unity and fraternity, Reid joined the Knights of Columbus in 1993. He first encountered members while he was in the service, and, as he grew older, he admired the example that Knights set in his community.

“I’d always wanted to be a leader, and these men were leaders,” said Reid, who has held multiple officer roles in his council and assembly and is an honorary lifetime member of both. “I loved how the Knights helped people, not only here but all over the world. That impressed me and I wanted to be a part of it.”

“He’s a very dedicated man,” said District Deputy Ed Shaver, who belongs to the same council and assembly as Reid and has known him for more than 40 years. “You just ask him to help out, and he’ll do whatever you need him to do.”

A LIFE OF FAITH AND SERVICE

Starting in the 1960s, Reid began supplementing the income from his repair shop with a second job as a cook at the VA hospital in Salisbury. That’s where he learned about the needs of his fellow veterans and decided to dedicate his life to helping them. Through his volunteer work at the VA, Reid connected with the Rowan County Veterans Honor Guard, and he was asked to start officiating at funerals in the early 2000s.

“They told me I had a good voice and could talk, so I just started doing this and haven’t stopped,” Reid said. “And I’m not going to stop.”

Reid’s pride in his years of military service is evident. Today, he frequently answers phone calls at his home with “Sergeant Reid!” and will strike a salute when posing for photos.

He’s become a fixture at the VA and is beloved by employees from a wide range of departments, said Franklin McCombs, who works with the Center for Development and Civic Engagement at the Salisbury veterans’ hospital and has known Reid for more than 50 years.

“He can talk to anyone on any level — people love to hear him talk and they request his presence,” McCombs said. “Everybody knows Mr. Reid.”

Reid’s skill in officiating at military funerals has taken him to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and other military sites. It’s also given him one of his most treasured memories: serving the December 2023 funeral of 2nd Lt. Fred Lorenzo Brewer, a Charlotte native who flew with the famed Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and died in a plane crash in Italy in 1944. Brewer’s body went unidentified for nearly 80 years until DNA tests linked him to family members in Charlotte in 2023. When the fallen pilot was returned to North Carolina for burial, Reid was there to help lay him to rest.

“That meant a lot to me because I’d studied about the Tuskegee Airmen since I was a boy,” Reid said. “Back in those days people would say racist things about the airmen — that because they were Black they couldn’t fly. But they ended up being some of the best American pilots in Europe. I was so happy when they asked me to officiate when they brought that pilot home.”

Shaver, meanwhile, marvels at Reid’s dedication not only to the VA but to his work with the Knights. He recalled many occasions when Reid would serve seven funerals in a week and then turn around and work at Council 12167’s weekly Lenten fish fry.

“Lewis Reid is wholeheartedly and 100 percent what a Knight is supposed to be,” Shaver said.

Being with his fellow Knights strengthens the faith that keeps him going, Reid affirmed. Even at 91, he plans to continue his work both with veterans and in the Order.

Reid recalled a pivotal conversation several years ago with his parish priest, who was present at Salisbury National Cemetery at the same time Reid was officiating a burial.

“He told me that witnessing the funeral impressed him so much that he couldn’t move from where he was standing,” Reid said. “That’s when I knew that I can’t quit; this is what my life is about — faith and patriotism.”

*****

CHRISTINA LEE KNAUSS is a reporter for the Catholic News Herald, the newspaper of the Diocese of Charlotte.

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‘These Veterans Are My Brothers’

FROM KANNAPOLIS TO KOREA — AND BACK

A LIFE OF FAITH AND SERVICE

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