Speech at Sertoma Club by Diane Diekman, July 23, 2024 Good afternoon. Thank you, Ray [Brooks], for inviting me here today, and thanks to all of you for being interested in the Battleship South Dakota Memorial. I would like to introduce Karen Dunham, one of my fellow board members, who is with me today. She […]
On these cold, dark winter mornings, do you long for daylight to arrive? Think what it would be like if daylight saving time (DST) were in effect all year long. The sun wouldn’t be up until nine a.m. Our children would be heading to school in darkness. And we’d be commuting in the dark, navigating […]
By CAPT Diane Diekman, USN (ret), at Deuel School, Clear Lake, South Dakota, November 9, 2023 Good morning. It’s always great to be back in my hometown. Thanks to Superintendent Schiernbeck for inviting me here today. I would like to talk about what is possibly the most amazing document ever written, the United States Constitution. […]
At the South Dakota State Fair in Huron, on September 3, Sherwin Linton invited me to talk about my books and my Navy career. Here is my speech. (Thanks to John Mogen for the photo.)
Memorial Day Speech by CAPT Diane Diekman, USN (ret) May 29, 2017 American Legion Post 13, Willow Lake, South Dakota If South Dakota hadn’t passed a law in the mid-1960s to allow only 12-year school districts, I wouldn’t be standing here today. I’d be a retired country schoolteacher instead of a retired U.S. Navy captain. […]
Below is the speech I gave on May 30, 2016, at American Legion Post 131 in Valley Springs, South Dakota. Welcome to today’s ceremony and thank you for being here. This is one of those few years when Memorial Day falls on both the traditional date of May 30th and the last Monday in May. […]
–This is a speech I gave to a veterans’ group at the Center for Active Generations in Sioux Falls on January 27, 2016– Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to be here. It’s so good to be living in South Dakota again. I graduated from Augustana College in 1972 and joined the Navy, […]
Today we are here to remember those who have died in defense of our nation, that the rest of us might live in peace and freedom. Memorial Day, which began in 1868 as Decoration Day to honor Union soldiers killed in the Civil War, now includes all wars and military actions. Since 1971, when the […]
Good afternoon, and welcome to the South Dakota Battleship Memorial on this beautiful, hot, sunny afternoon. I am CAPT Diane Diekman, and we’re here today to celebrate the promotion of Anastasia Quanbeck from commander to captain
Eulogy for Mildred Diekman By her daughter CAPT Diane Diekman, USN (ret) 25 April 2012 When Mildred Hanson received her Navy discharge and came home to the Hidewood Valley after World War II, she met a bachelor who had moved to the farm next door. John Diekman had been in the Army during the war. […]