Memoria da Carmine per Memorial Day

The last night my father, Carmine, whose first name graces this guesthouse and last name graces my Italian passport, spent on this earth, he bolted up ramrod straight in his wheelchair and blurted,

"You know what today is?"

It startled me. Bolting was no mean feat for someone in the final stages of mesothelioma. The energy and speed of his movement upended my concentration on the episode of "Judge Judy" we were watching, an activity we did so often it somnamulized me. All I could do was bark a clipped

"No, what?" 

"It's sixty years ago today I was shot."

Although I had seen the crater of scar tissue on the inside of my father's knee, he had never spoken about it. 

"You mean, when you were wounded in the army?"

"Yeah. In the Pacific. A sniper."

"Did it hurt?" was the first follow up that came to mind.

Carmine looked at me as though my marbles were spilling out of my head and rolling under the couch. 

"Did it hurt? It hurt like a sonofabitch!" 

I decided to ask something a little less reminiscent of a kindergarten show and tell.

"How did it happen?"

For the first time in the 55 years I'd known him, he told me.

He was on night patrol. On a Pacific Island - Sampei is the name I remember although I could be making that up because it sounds like something he said which I don't remember. He liked it there. It was tropical - warm. He liked warm weather, the warmer the better, a trait he passed on to me. He 

always wanted to go back when there was no war. After a turn-around to enable him to make another 

pass on his patrol path, he heard a shot, felt a sting "like a bad bee sting" in his leg, and fell to the 

ground.

"I screamed like hell. Two of my buddies ran out and dragged me back to cover."

"Then what?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Then I went home." 

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, 

"I was lucky. I don't know why he missed hitting me where he'd kill me. Too much sake, maybe. Got my buddy the night before. He died in my arms."

That was it. He went back to Judge Judy. 

The next day he was gone. The sniper - his disease - got him in the night.

  

This is my sixth Memorial Day in Italy. It is strange to be in a country in which it is a weekend like any other weekend. Especially a country which, for the better part of my father's army career, was on the opposite side of his army. I wonder how my grandfather felt sending four boys off to fight against the country of his birth? I wonder what my Italian friends and neighbors would think about my 
celebrating my dad's service ? I know that among Italians there are mixed feelings

about American activity in World War II. One of my Italian friends, from Pisa, has grandparents on opposite sides of the fence. Her grandfather resented the Americans because they bombed his neighborhood. Her grandmother, who lived close to Campo dei Miracoli and the Leaning Tower, where bombing was off limits, loved having Americans in her neighborhood. They gave her chocolate.

Regardless, it seems there is little doubt that Americans were vital in bringing about an end to a difficult era for the Italian Republic.
A few years ago, I had the front of Casa da Carmine refinished and repainted. When I went to the
"geometra" - a combination surveyor/architect - to complete the paperwork, there was a photo of him with the American gangster Lucky Luciano on the wall. My eyes gaped at it.
"Oh, yes", the geometra said, "He used to visit this part of Italy. You know how he got to be a free man?"
I shook my head.
"His mafia connections. He used the ones he had in Sicily to clear the way for the Americans to land.
He helped turn the war around. So the American government let him go. No jail for his crimes."
I looked sideways at him and tilted my head. He opened his hands, palms out, arms spread and nodded.
"True!" He said.
I wonder what my father would say if he knew that an Italian-American gangster and the Mafia helped him win the war? I think he'd laugh.
Thank you for your service, Dad.
Grazie mille per il tuo servicio, babbo.

Carmine and Me