BLOG: The First Lieutenant's Daughter

My father started as a Mad Man - writing ad copy for the Washington Post in the early 40's. He was a tad stout and dressed like a cross between a Southern senator in summer and a newspaperman in winter. He was a Roosevelt, Boston Irish, Catholic Democrat and he ate lunch with Mrs. Roosevelt from time to time. He knew Harry S. Truman and he drank at the Press Club with gang from the Post, the Hill and other assorted D.C. characters and he and his friends raised general hell in the dark hours of the morning - usually drunk and quite harmless.

One day his mother called from home (being outside of Boston) and said in her thick Boston accent: " Eh-wid - you got mail from the draft boooad - it looks impooatant - shud I keep it foooa you?” My father - weighing in at about 225, more nearsighted than Mr. Magoo - said "No Ma - they send that to everyone and I am no candidate for the service - too fat, too blind. Throw it away.” And so she did.  

A few weeks later another one arrived - marked "urgent" and she called him again. "Open it Ma," he said, "and I'll be there tonight.” It was a draft notice stating time and place to report for induction. My father - whose roadster was missing a driver's side door - jumped in the car, turned up the heat and drove north (when the cop who stopped him heard he was reporting for duty, he saluted and thanked him). In his brief case he had put a fifth of gin, a pair of boxer shorts and a toothbrush. Why take more? When he reported as directed he had a little smile - knowing they would stamp him 4F and send him back to Washington. My father was at boot camp the next morning. And so began his career as a career army man.  

He got moved up and down the Eastern coast, caught malaria in some backwater in the south and went to OCS where he came out a 2nd lieutenant (and got married to my mother in 1943). An officer and a gentleman assigned various posts as a liaison, writer and PR guy - still a Mad Man and still stateside until 1945 when he was sent to Germany and Italy to bring our boys back home on Liberty ships.  

He got his "war wound" in Cuxhaven when a stray bullet came into the Officer's Club grazing his temple (and no Purple Heart ) as he was doing what he did best - bending his elbow and buying another round. He liberated our boys and he liberated other POW's detained by the Nazis and then he went to Italy to do the same.

Italy was in a sad state. Poor and angry and hungry from the tip of the boot to the top. My father loved the Italians and loved their faces when they saw US soldiers walking among the ruins. My father's arrival was no exception. He lamented the condition of the people he encountered and he lamented the fact there was no ice to be had in the town he was in. Civittavecchia. One could not make a good martini (in the land of Martini & Rossi) without ice and a martini was what he and his men wanted.  

My father had not written clever ad copy in vain however - his mind was quick and trained to find solutions and find one he did. He found a gang of local kids (sgunizzi) begging for choco-latta and gom and he simply said "gelato.” And off they went to the local gelateria - my father, his men and the urchins. My father - in his limited but beautifully spoken Italian asked the owner if he could buy tutti gelato for the kids.

Confusion ensued - I suspect this was a new one on the Italian man and he thought my father was making a mistake (and he had heard US soldiers were a little nuts) - but my father persisted, waved army scrip and so after some confusion, the happy sgunizzi all got a cup of . - which my father paid for and served up himself. But he didn't come out from behind the counter. Instead he materialized a shaker, a bottle of gin, some vermouth, glasses (don't ask), Italian olives and with a scraper removed all the ice in the freezer. And made dry martinis - for his men and most of the men in the town.  

He gave the owner more scrip for the use of the freezer and the Americans - from this man's army, swayed out the door and back to their post - feeling their war effort on behalf of the Italians and their efforts at liberation had been useful and welcome and far better than Hershey bars and silk stocking (neither of which they had anyway.)  

I am the (eventual) First Lieutenant's Daughter and I approve this true story of bravery and cunning in the time of war and this day of remembrance. Arrivederci Papa - I am the proud daughter of a veteran whom I remember with love and gratitude.