The odds were already stacked against Don “Juan” Wentworth before he joined the U.S. Army in August 1946.

At 16 years old, he forged military documents to enlist. He was 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 113 pounds — roughly 10 pounds less than the minimum — and was eager to abandon a rocky life at home in the Olympia area. Thanks to a sympathetic sergeant, official documents recorded him as being 125 pounds. Wentworth, who turns 86 on June 2 and lives in Freeland, went on to serve in the military for over 30 years in active and reserve roles. He’ll be among the many veterans who will participate in Monday’s Memorial Day service at Bayview Cemetery, beginning at 11 a.m.

“I was raised up in World War II and I felt I wanted to serve my country,” Wentworth said.

Wentworth is an active member of the Veterans Resource Center in Langley. He served in the Army’s Air Corps which was later transformed into the U.S. Air Force. After the war, his service allowed him to visit the sites of major battles conducted by the U.S. military in the Pacific Theater including Okinawa and Iwo Jima. He was stationed on Guam for one year and though the war was over, there were still dangers lurking about. Japanese soldiers, who had implicit orders not to surrender at all costs, were still hiding out across the 210 miles of island located in the Western Pacific.

“It was nervous times,” Wentworth said. “There were still Japanese that hadn’t been captured — that’s what made it so dicey. Every so often there would be contact with one of them and then you hear shots fired.”

Wentworth was a radio, telephone and teletype operator while on Guam. He was often apprehensive due to fear that he would be shot by one of his fellow soldiers, as others were wary about an attack by the few remaining Japanese troops on the island. Wentworth was on Guam at the same time as Shoichi Yokoi. Yokoi was a Japanese sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army who was among the last three holdouts to be found after the end of hostilities in 1945. He was discovered in the jungle in January 1972, 28 years after U.S. forces gained control of the island in 1944.

After departing Guam, his service took him to England, Mississippi and Georgia. He even encountered Winston Churchill departing Buckingham Palace, while with his first wife in a cab. Wentworth was in his uniform and saluted Churchill, who was in a limousine next to his cab, to which Churchill responded with a respectful nod and wave of his cigar.

He also trained troops in preparation for the Vietnam War as a senior infantry instructor at Fort Benning in Georgia in 1968.

Wentworth is proud to have served, but at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss., he witnessed some of the uglier sides of racial segregation. One such incident involved a black colonel riding a public bus. While service members of any race could ride side-by-side on base, African Americans were told to go to the back of the bus once they were in the public eye. When the driver told the colonel, a Tuskegee Airman — a famed group of black fighter pilots who fought in WWII — to head to the back of the bus, Wentworth stood up to protest. He was stopped by the colonel.

“He knew we’d both get killed if I started a hassle; it would have been bad for both of us,” Wentworth said. “I’m from Washington. What do I know about prejudice?”

Wentworth did not see combat in WWII, but suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from events that took place on Guam — those stories, he said, are just for him. He is also 100 percent disabled. He retired from the Army a sergeant first class.

Wentworth battled a drinking problem which eventually came to a halt Aug. 13, 1966. He turned things around by becoming an alcohol and drug counselor for 25 years. He’s also attended meetings at the Veterans Resource Center for seven years, back when attendance was two to three people. The group averages anywhere between 12 to 20 per meeting nowadays, he said.

Dana Sawyers, a member of the Whidbey Veterans Resource Center, commended Wentworth for his interpersonal skills when interacting with people during meetings and events like the Veterans Stand Down held annually in July.

“He’s very helpful to other people,” Sawyers said. “He always shows up to VRC stuff and he’s really a contributor. He really tells people about the importance of having a place for people to come together and connect with other veterans, because that was such a big part of his life.”

Kat Ersch, a member of the Veteran Resource Center’s support group, shared Sawyer’s sentiments of Wentworth.

“He talks to people very easily and he can get people to talk to him and he’s quite a character,” Ersch said. “He’ll listen to you seriously but also try to make you a laugh. He’s just a sweetie. And you’d never know he was his age.”

Asked what Memorial Day meant to him, Wentworth had difficulties putting his thoughts into words. He eventually found an answer, upon thinking about friends he grew up with in Olympia and Bellingham who died while serving in World War II and Korea.

“All I can think about is all the people that died,” Wentworth said. “It just brings me a sadness of the futility of war and the loss of human life on both sides.”