Sad news from Cleveland area,, WWII vetearns to stop meeting

[Stock Doc]

10/04/03

Brian E. Albrecht
Plain Dealer Reporter


Hudson- Last call for the boys who dropped from the skies and squinted through gunsights into the clanking death of German tanks.

Once, they were kids who rode gliders into enemy territory from Italy to France to Holland, then helped to hold the line in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.

Now, they're old men, too aged or infirm to keep gathering for an annual dose of remember-when, as they have for the past 25 years.

So this weekend, 50 or so survivors of the 80th Anti-Tank Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division have come from across the state and nation to gather at the Holiday Inn in Hudson for their last official reunion.

They're the last of a generation of veterans who are dying at a rate of more than 1,200 every day.

The soldiers who once arrived on the scene in Jeeps bristling with .50-caliber machine guns, towing 57 mm anti-tank guns, now visit a hotel hospitality room armed with canes, old snapshots and memories.

The scent of bygone battlefields drifts through the air in short bursts of overheard conversation.

"That's where Jay got two hits in the head . . . The bullet had gone through my lung and I wasn't feeling very good."

Gordon Walberg, 80, of Galesburg, Ill., still bears the scars from a bullet that drilled into his right shoulder and chest while he and 11 other paratroopers held off German armor during the Battle of the Bulge. Six others were wounded or killed.

He still winces when telling the tale, as if the slug is once again ripping through him. Then, he suddenly stops. "Understand, this isn't bragging," he says. "It's just that some of these things we went through were so intense, you can remember every little detail. If you were there, you'd know."

The losses don't always come in battle, as one overheard vet muses:

"Before my wife passed away, she went to 17 of these reunions. I always thought she'd get tired of hearing these war stories, but she was pretty good about it. We were married 53 years, but the ol' cancer comes in . . ."

Marge Germovsek, 75, of Mentor, joins four other widows at the reunion. They wouldn't miss it for the world. Germovsek's husband, Lou, died 16 years ago, but she still comes because there are good friends, good people here.

And hearing the men's stories of buddies left behind isn't as sad as it might seem, she says, if you consider that "they know that someday, they're going to be together again."

Chuck Ianni doesn't tell war stories. Sees no reason to revisit times that were hard enough the first time around. So he tries to keep 'em laughing.

When a buddy remarks about driving 576 miles to the reunion, Ianni, 83, of Highland Heights, pokes his cane into the guy's gut and quips, "I remember when you were able to walk that far, and keep your mouth shut while you were doing it."

To another arriving vet, he shouts, "Hey, you got ugly! What's your dog look like?"

Conversation and coffee swirl in murky depths of the past.

"Remember how he'd get drunk and sing I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles'? . . . He was killed in the Ardennes."

To Raymond Fary, 78, of Munster, Ind., the reunions provided grist for a search for a fellow unit member, still missing in action. A buddy's account of how the man was killed during a battle in France, and a possible photo of the death scene in a 1944 Life magazine, led Fary to the actual site when he revisited Europe a few years ago.

He even found the Frenchmen who carried the man's body to a Normandy cemetery. But his quest ended in the ranks of 132 graves lying under stones marked "unknown."

For Robert Lindorff, 78, of Galesburg, Ill., the gathering is a chance to "sit around and lie to each other, trying to recapture our youth."

Are they successful?

He ponders that one, and replies: "To a certain extent. There's nothing good that comes out of war except the friendships. It's not a macho thing, but you love your buddies, and that will never change."

Overheard, in a room of memories, pride and few regrets: "Yeah, we was all muscle back then."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

balbrecht@plaind.com, 216-999-4853


http://www.cleveland.com/metro/plain...6005568641.xml

[DaveTinNY]

Thanks for posting that, Rick... The WWII guys are leaving us way too quickly.

:jet: :right:

[NRAJOE]

Too sad...

[PAPA G]

[alan c.]

God Bless them all.
We are forever grateful.