Uncle Tony sat in a lawn chair, watching, a content man approaching his 91st year. He didn’t know that I was mesmerized by his presence, inspired by his courage and proud to call him my uncle. Some weeks before, he had ordered the Lisi family reunion to take place once more, after the annual gathering had somehow fallen off the radar. He called Cousin Lisa, the one most capable of pulling it off, and pull it off she did. Fifty of us enjoyed each other’s company on a warm late summer’s day at a picturesque park in Connecticut.
Where did all of these kids come from, I wondered, as they ran here and there, and everywhere — babies, 3-year-olds, 7-, 8-, 13-, 16-year-olds, dozens of them; leaders, followers, watchers and the indifferent ones, all drawn together by the man in the lawn chair. He watched them, and sat with his wife of 66 years, taking it all in, alive in the moment and loving every second of it.
After all he has gone through, how wonderful it must be to wake in the morning, look to the heavens and be thankful for another day, another 24 hours with the woman he loves, and then spend a day in the park with his family! I watched him enjoy the moment, and closed my eyes and thought of his story, the one that he told me and my cousin Dennis one day, some years ago, and only after we insisted — the story of his service during World War II. It is the story that he had never shared fully with anybody, except Auntie Rose, and she kept their secrets well.
Dennis recorded the hour-long conversation, persuading Uncle Tony that it was the right thing to do. The family deserved to know. They needed to know. They didn’t know the 19-year-old soldier who captured a German officer and earned a Bronze Star by crawling through the battlefields of Italy, establishing communications between the front lines and the artillery, was the same man who had grown old, run a successful business and gone on with his life after returning from the war.
Once he got going, the stories flowed, and he was comfortable telling us all about it, and we ate it up, listening as history came alive.
“The Germans would shell us at night and the phone lines would get blown up. Somebody had to put them back together.”
“Did you wait until the next day when the shelling stopped?” I asked.
He tilted his head and grinned. I saw the fearless 19-year-old in his eyes then, as he described running in front of the artillery to repair the broken lines.
“We went at night, followed the lines until they came to an end.”
“While they were shelling?”
“While they were shelling.”
“You shouldn’t be alive,” said Dennis.
“I never expected to come home.”
A peaceful silence filled the room as we absorbed the enormity of what Uncle Tony survived.
“How did you capture the German?” I asked, not wanting to change the subject but afraid this “small” task might be overlooked.
“I needed his motorcycle.”
“You captured a motorcycle?” Dennis asked, completely charmed.
“Got tired of walking. I was a little different then,” he said, his old eyes sparkling as I imagined they did when he commandeered a Luger and a motorcycle from a German officer in 1944. “Wasn’t afraid of anything. My family doesn’t know it, but I was a crazy son of a b — — .”
I believed every word. He survived the Battle of Anzio. Fought with General Patton in the First Armored Division, marched into Rome and saw Mussolini and his girlfriend hanging at Piazza Loreto in Milan. He joined the 10th Mountain Division for the Po River Valley campaign, survived when German fighter jets strafed their position, was separated from his unit and hidden by an Italian family. Ten days later, after some “crazy times,” Uncle Tony returned to his base to find that his unit had shipped out and his duffel bag was missing, along with the Luger.
“What could I say? I was late,” he smiled.
Every day since, I’ve been thankful that we weren’t late, and managed to get Uncle Tony’s story recorded. When the interview ended we met our wives and kids at a nearby restaurant. Tony took us out to dinner. We talked, told stories and laughed the entire time. Tony sat next to Auntie Rose and joined the lively conversation. He didn’t say a word about the war.
I watched him watching the family swirl around him, a complex man at peace with his past, and wondered if the new generation would understand and appreciate what he endured all of those years ago. I wondered if they would care. Then I saw him holding the littlest of his brood, and she sat on his lap for a while, and it was as if a war had never happened.
I think I understood then. It doesn’t matter if people knew what he did, or the sacrifices that he made. What matters is that he was alive, and able to enjoy the freedoms that he had fought for.
And so were we.
Michael Morse is a Providence firefighter and the author of the books “Rescuing Providence” and the forthcoming “Mr. Wilson Makes It Home.”
