Chris,
My Dad's box had "The Road To Rome" too. I remember looking at the Nazi helmet (which was too heavy), but it was all "mysterious"
stuff to me. I knew the word "war", but never really what it meant (of course, only the Vets
who were actually there can ever really know that). It's one of the biggest regrets of my life,
that I didn't know or understand. My Dad talked plenty about the Army ,"the fellows",
Camp Edwards & Fort Devens, but not about the war. My mother knew only a bit more that we did. If she said: "Dad was in N. Africa", this might elicit from my father a cryptic one
sentence proclamation like: "Those Arabs stole everything!". These statements didn't
invite further questions and my brother & I would look perplexed at each other.
Every June 6th without fail, my father would sit down at the breakfast table and solemnly
intone: "D-Day the 6th of June!" with misty eyes and my mother would say:"Now Frank...".
(to this day, every June 6th morning I say out loud: "D-day the 6th of June!". I now realize that
it was a prayer that my Dad was saying for those fellows who died there).
The only place we knew my father was - was Anzio. He told only this one story about the
beachhead. I guess the guys would come out more at night & had to get underground during the day because of the constant shelling. Towards daybreak, my father spotted a couple
of GIs in some kind of bombed out building (I think it had a second floor) and these guys
had a been having a bit of a "party" with some vino. My dad hollared at them: "Hey you guys,
get down outta there!" and they said :"Ok Sarge! We're comin!" and he said:"Well, get a move on!" and the shelling started & he got into a foxhole. Later, he found those
two guys dead. They hadn't come down after he yelled at them.
I now believe I know why Dad told just that one story. I think he blamed himself for
those guys deaths and thought he should've stayed & made them get outta there.
He certainly saw plenty of his buddies wounded or killed (he put their names in his diaries
with "KIA" next to em), but that was "war" and it happened because they were landing, or
advancing, on patrol, or at their posts. These two fellows shouldn't have died & I think he
felt partially responsible.
When I began the project of researching & archiving Dad's war years, I shared what
I found with my mother & read his letters to her. She'd often look at me with tears in her eyes
and say: "If only we'd known these things, we could've understood him better".
In a way, my research ended up to be an unexpected gift for my mother towards the end of her life. Before she'd be reunited with the man she loved, she'd come to understand him
in a whole new way (of course like all Vet's wives across America, she'd still have made
him get rid of his weaponry. HA! 
).
As for me, I still have much regret for rolling my eyes when Dad would talk about
the Army & not finding out more when he was alive. I was 29 & still stupid when he died.
I tell him all time: "Oh Dad, I'm so sorry! I didn't know & should've understood!".
In a way, I think that's what we're all doing here. All of us sons & daughters.
We're telling their stories, honoring them and sending our love.
There's alot of fun & alot of good that comes from that. I'm so glad I found the "VI Corps Combat Engineers"!
We all have MARION to thank for THAT, don't we???!!
MARION, MARION!!!
Walt is surely strutting around heaven talkin' about his girl (and rightly so!)
mary ann
