Warbird Information Exchange

A chronicle of an extraordinary life
By CHAO XIONG, Star Tribune

January 29, 2008

Decorated WWII fighter pilot Ken Dahlberg of Wayzata received piles of mail every year for decades from schoolchildren begging him to "tell me all you know" about the war.

It was a daunting request for the Wisconsin farm boy turned POW and accomplished businessman who got dragged into the Watergate scandal. But he'd sit down and write back. Sometimes he'd send along a book about the war.

"Ken's the kind of person who can't ignore a letter from someone in Poughkeepsie," said his close friend and attorney, Warren Mack.

The mail kept coming. Dahlberg couldn't keep up, so for nearly two decades Mack would tell him: Do your own book.

In 2005, Dahlberg finally relented and, working with local author Al Zdon, laid down his memories in a 160-page book filled with pictures and memories that comes out this week.

"I never thought my life would be a book," Dahlberg said recently from his winter home in Arizona.

The self-deprecating and no-nonsense Dahlberg said he won't be bothered if many of the 10,000 copies don't sell. And although the book touches on his involvement with the Watergate scandal, which brought down President Richard Nixon in the 1970s, he said that turbulent time in his life isn't the focus.

Dahlberg, 90, was the Midwest finance chairman of Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign. He delivered a check to the Nixon campaign that later turned up in a Watergate burglar's bank account.

That linked Nixon to the break-in and landed Dahlberg's involvement in the movie, "All the President's Men," in which Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's character calls him at home in Wayzata.

Dahlberg was cleared of any wrongdoing.

"If it wasn't straight by now, I didn't care," he said with nary a tone of bitterness.

The focus of Dahlberg's book is his World War II experiences.

Charm and perseverance

"To me, it's about an amazingly self-reliant person who started out with little money and education and found a way to charm, persevere, think and educate his way to great success," Mack said.

Dahlberg grew up in Wilson, Wis., on a small dairy farm where he milked cows and attended a one-room schoolhouse with eight grade levels.

His senior year of high school was spent in St. Paul, where he later worked washing pots and pans at the Lowry Hotel. With his farming background, he quickly rose through the ranks to become a food and beverage controller for the Albert Pick chain of hotels.

"Those were preentitlement days," Dahlberg said. "No one was entitled to anything except the opportunity to do something a little more worthwhile.

"You didn't want to be hungry like you were yesterday, so you rolled up your sleeves a little more. It's a natural instinct. It's not an intellectual thing."

Mack and Zdon said that attitude and charm permeate every aspect of Dahlberg's eventful life.

Dahlberg was a WWII ace who was shot down three times (rescued once by a French baron and baroness, who remain close friends) and spent four months in a German POW camp subsisting on three slices of brown bread daily and once-a-week bowls of cabbage soup.

He counts two Purple Hearts among his many awards and later started a small electronics business that became the hearing-aid company Miracle Ear. He currently has his hand in a number of businesses, including Buffalo Wild Wings.

"It's a pretty stunning story," Zdon said. "Some of it's luck."

Much of Dahlberg's story is similar to his peers of "the Greatest Generation," said Brian Horrigan, an exhibit curator for the Minnesota Historical Society.

Horrigan interviewed Dahlberg for the "Minnesota's Greatest Generation" exhibit, which is scheduled to open in May 2009.

"Something that is as well-documented as in his case is quite extraordinary," Horrigan said of Dahlberg's book. "In some ways, he's kind of a quintessential example of his generation."

All proceeds from the book, available on his website and from area booksellers, will go toward the Minnesotans' Military Appreciation Fund. Aside from an event today and some radio appearances, there aren't big plans to promote the book.

That's fine by Dahlberg, a married father of three who still flies despite his age.

"The mere fact that anybody would print it is a success," he said.

Not a day goes by that I am not amazed at the contributions to our society these men and women made on and off the battle field. How do we get a copy of his book?