Ed was kind enough to share his memoirs with me this summer (2010), and as always, I'm simply thrilled to add another engineer's story to our website. Thank you Ed.

I spoke with him a couple of days ago on the phone, and he stated he may have additions in the near future. He began to laugh and explained that after he shared them with a buddy, the man exclaimed, "Did you ever pick up a gun?" And upon hearing that, I had to laugh too. So he thought it would be appropriate to append his memoirs and add other experiences including the time they spent as infantry. I will look forward to it.

Ed has a very easy writing style, and I believe you will enjoy the following as much as I did.

Dec 2016 - Ah, another kind and gentle soul passes from this world to the next. I shall truly miss your phone calls and your letters. I always looked forward to hearing your voice and loved when you'd simply call just to chat. I'm grateful that you took the time to share you history with me. You shall never be forgotten. Marion

Here's the introduction to Footnotes of a WWII GI:

The idea of writing my essays about Word War II (WWII) came from my eldest daughter. She claimed that I, like many WWII veterans, hardly talked about their war years. She thought the stories could serve as good records for future generations. After several years of interruption, due to caring for my wife during her illness, I resumed writing as a way of helping me cope with her death.

While writing, reminiscing all the while about life during the war years, the word footnotes kept coming back, accompanying my thoughts. Thinking of various activities of the soldiers, made the word become more vivid. The word footnotes seamed to take on the resemblance of the usually short notes a the bottom of book pages: so-called footnotes. Perhaps these thoughts harbored on my mind excessively because the quick notes I wrote on small pieces of scrap paper were also short notes. The short notes eventually found their way home with me; they were useful in writing the essays.

The word footnotes also made me think of the foot-soldier, the GI, the infantryman. Their feet walked in Europe from Africa to Germany.

Combat engineers, sometimes referred to as pick-and-shovel men, also served as infantry when needed and did their share of walking.

Such were my thoughts that gave birth to a home-made version of footnotes for the title of the book.

Edward M. Saraniero
Columbus, Ohio
March 15, 2010

Click here to read his entire story in PDF form:

Footnotes of a WWII GI

Attachment to Footnotes of a World War II GI - added 10-17-2014