{"id":86,"date":"2023-03-23T13:16:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-23T13:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/2023\/03\/23\/kia-georgia-hosts-98-year-old-veteran-who-served-in-several-wars\/"},"modified":"2024-10-07T20:47:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T20:47:50","slug":"kia-georgia-hosts-98-year-old-veteran-who-served-in-several-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/2023\/03\/23\/kia-georgia-hosts-98-year-old-veteran-who-served-in-several-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Kia Georgia Hosts 98-year-old Veteran Who Served In Several Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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By Faith J. Jones<\/span><\/p>\n

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Kia Georgia <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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When the announcement came that Kia Corporation would build a plant in West Point, Georgia, the news spread throughout the state – including in Stovall, Georgia, where Render Martin read about it in his local newspaper.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Martin, an Army veteran and survivor of three wars, was 81-years-old when the plant announcement came in 2006, and he said to himself that he sure would like to see how Kia vehicles are made.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI read about it, and I heard people talking about it,\u201d Martin said of the Kia facility. \u201cI also saw the Kia cars (on the road), and I knew that Kia made pretty cars, and I wanted to see how they were made.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As the years went on, Martin\u2019s health declined, and he wasn\u2019t able to make it to the plant once it was announced that the public could come in for tours. Then, of course, COVID-19 shut down the world for a couple of years and everything was put on hold.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Martin, who is now 98-years-old, kept up with news about Kia Georgia, and he recently renewed his interest to visit. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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When his care team at the Trinka Davis Veterans Village in Carrollton heard about Martin\u2019s wish, one of them contacted his uncle \u2013 an engineer in Kia Georgia\u2019s general assembly production area \u2013 and the team at Kia set about making Martin\u2019s visit one he would not forget.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Kia veterans from several production shops and departments at Kia lined up to greet Martin, who was wheeled in by his caretakers, wearing his favorite cowboy hat. The smile on his face as the team members thanked him for his service was immeasurable.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt was more than a pleasure to meet Mr. Martin and thank him for all he\u2019s done for our country, and to show him what we do here at Kia,\u201d said Vicki Taylor, a group leader from the general assembly shop at Kia Georgia.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Martin served in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam War. He shed a tear as he described to Kia\u2019s CEO Stuart Countess how he was grateful to have made it through so many wars: \u201cI just prayed to the Lord to keep me safe,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Martin said the tour at Kia Georgia lived up to his expectations.<\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cIt was excellent,\u201d he said. \u201cI enjoyed all of it. I have never been to one place in my life where everybody looks so happy and content, and that made me feel really good.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n


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Countess said Kia\u2019s tour program was designed to bring about special moments like the one experienced by Martin.<\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cOver the years we\u2019ve had plenty of visitors to tour our facility,\u201d Countess said, \u201cand Render Martin\u2019s visit is one that we won\u2019t forget. We are glad he chose to visit our plant and that he holds our products and team members in such high regard.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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Martin is married and has two daughters \u2013 one who lives in New Jersey and one lives in Philadelphia. His caretakers at the VA village said he had talked for a while about visiting the plant, and they were excited that his wishes were granted. Martin said he was excited as well.<\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cThe Kia team is doing an excellent job from what I saw,\u201d Martin said. \u201cEverybody had a smile on their faces and was happy.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Martin said his favorite Kia vehicle is the Telluride \u2013 exclusively built at the Kia Georgia plant.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI hope to have the opportunity to come back again,\u201d Martin said.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Joy Johnston, Kia\u2019s tour coordinator, said her team was happy to have hosted such a special visitor.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI think he made our day more than we made his,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/div>\n

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By Faith J. Jones Kia Georgia When the announcement came that Kia Corporation would build a plant in West Point, Georgia, the news spread throughout the state – including in Stovall, Georgia, where Render Martin read about it in his local newspaper. Martin, an Army veteran and survivor of three wars, was 81-years-old when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adntesting.online\/chambersledger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}