Ron Olson sat in his purple Veterans of Foreign Wars vest, six colorful pins adorning the area near his heart.
They serve as reminders of his service in the U.S. Navy, one for good conduct among others for his time in Korea.
Dozens of pins adorn his VFW hat. A diamond stud commemorates his past service as a commander of a VFW chapter.
While in Korea, Olson's primary job was to transport troops.
Saturday, 65 years after he was deployed, Olson received commemorative pins for 65 years with the VFW and 50 years with the VFW's honor society, the Military Order of the Cootie.
He delivered a speech at the ceremony and flag-retiring held at Van Dorn Villa.
"Wonderful," Olson said. "I'm so proud."
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A VFW commander presented a flag to Van Dorn Villa. And there were pancakes. Lots of pancakes.
The former storekeeper, second-class enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1947 and joined the regular Navy in 1948. Before he was deployed to Korea, he was part of an expedition to the Pribilof Islands in Alaska that netted $2.5 million worth of seal furs, skin and oil.
He suffered a hernia when he fell off a truckload of supplies while in Alaska, an injury which required surgery and 30 days in a Washington hospital.
In Korea, he landed three times in Incheon and once each in Pusan, Wonsan and Iwon, above the 38th Parallel, which formed the border between North and South Korea before the Korean War.
He served in Korea from 1950 until 1952, when he was granted an honorable discharge.
Olson has been heavily involved in the VFW, serving as commander of chapters in Wahoo and Nebraska City. He used to attend every veteran's funeral within a two-hour driving radius.
At 86, he's still involved, but not to the same degree. With the assistance of a recorded version of the song, Olson said, he has performed taps at 52 military funerals last year. He played taps on Saturday, too.
He said patriotism drives him.
He grew up on a homestead farm in Swedeburg in Saunders County and has a copy of the deed signed by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870.
When Olson was 15, his family moved to Austin, Texas, after his mother died. He returned to Nebraska after his discharge from the Navy and owned a taxi business in Nebraska City for a few years, winning an award from the city's Chamber of Commerce for driving a girl with cerebral palsy to school each day for a number of years.
He moved to Lincoln in 1965, where he worked at a packing plant. In 1990, he returned to the farm where he had grown up, staying there until 2003, when he came back to Lincoln for good.
"I'm excited about it," Olson said of Saturday's ceremony. "I'm excited, and it's an honor."