'Mom, If You Only Knew ...'


More than half a century after World War II, its effects still linger in the lives of those who were sent to fight.

And decades later, some of those same thoughts and effects are felt by veterans of other conflicts, too.

World War II veteran Joseph DeLuca has come to the realization that when he sits in a restaurant or stands in a crowd, it's always with his back toward a wall.

Barbara Landin of Desert Storm quickly agreed and asked the remainder of the other veterans in the room, "Where do you sit?"

The room was still with reflection before the men nodded their heads and answered almost in unison, "with my back against the wall."

DeLuca and Landin were joined recently by veterans Thurman Jester, Lloyd Boyer and Ralph Nolletti at Wooster VFW Post 1081. The group, four of whom saw Battle in the European Theater of World War II, and one who went to war nearly five decades later, shared "war stories," memories and feelings. And although the two generations fought in entirely different wars, the emotional and psychological changes were the same.

"I can't go into a theater and sit in a crowd of people, either. I can't take it," DeLuca said.

Thurman Jester

Thurman Jester added, "I always sit in a corner..." and Landin finished the sentence for him, ".. it's a noise thing."

"Anyone who was overseas develops an insight into what scares them. My biggest fear was that I would be wounded and they'd leave me," remembered Nolletti.

"We had one fellow, and I don't care if that artillery was over in England ... man, when he heard that first shot, he was finding a place to hide," he continued.

"I tended to be that way," grinned Lloyd Boyer. "I didn't want to get killed." The smile faded quickly as he continued, "I remember ... during a shelling, after a while my whole body shook and I couldn't stop it ... my body shook! I was scared!"

To a soldier, the war veterans all remembered clearly instances in which they were either paralyzed with fear or their bodies shook uncontrollably.

"People would ask, 'Were you ever scared'?" said Jester, "and I'd say, 'Heck no, I was petrified'!"

Joseph DeLuca

DeLuca recalls how his stomach muscles would tighten when it was time to move out and that they were always sore. In fact, he had that same experience viewing the film "Private Ryan."

And they all had good reason to be scared, frightened of being wounded or worse.

Jester earned two Purple Hearts in battle. He had a tank shot out from under him, but returned to the line two weeks later. He was almost to Paris when he was hit again with shrapnel.

Once, Jester's unit was stationed on a hill, overlooking Saint Lo, France, when the Germans started dropping mortars.

"I was outside my destroyer, sitting underneath it at the back, reading a letter from home, and one (mortar) hit real close ... I had shrapnel going through the letter.

"I've got that letter at home yet," he added. "But I still say I was one of the luckiest. I got to come back and the rest of them didn't."

"Around Memorial Day I always think about a lot of the friends you had who didn't come back with you," said DeLuca. "I've had 55 years of good memories since, but you still can't forget what happened.

Ralph Nolletti

"A lot of the people think you're on the (Wooster Public) Square acting smart, when you're in uniform or whatever, but it's not that .... they just don't understand."

"They don't realize you're respecting those crosses over there in Belgium, Holland, France .... and how many guys we knew and we were friends ..." added Nolletti.

"That's what we're doing when we have a military funeral," added Boyer.

He noted that members of the VFW had assisted with 60 military funerals in this area last year ..."and those are just the ones that requested military rites ... that's almost a full-time job. It's more than one a week. And we all feel it's our duty.

"Thank God none of my sons went to die," he offered.

Most of us can be pretty thankful," added DeLuca. "Teens today think they have it tough, but most of us were only 18, and whole families went off to war.

"The kind of sights ... you've heard of Dachau ... my outfit helped liberate that," he continue. "The sights I saw there, and now people are trying to say there was no Holocaust and we're some of the few eyewitnesses left.

"You know, the word 'cleansing' in Yugoslavia bothers me, because I saw what cleansing does," he said.

"I'm surprised anybody comes back in their right mind," DeLuca added.

Lloyd Boyer

"How do you know we did?" countered Boyer.

DeLuca went on to recall that he had been back home for about four months when his mother said she didn't get the same boy back.

"I didn't tell her what I had to do, but I said, 'Mom, If you only knew what I've been through.' You're 18 and you've never been away from home. Everything you had to do, you were taught isn't the right thing to do."

It was just Nolletti's third day home from war when his sister came into his room to wake him. She put both hands on his shoulders and the next thing she knew, she had "jumped clear across the bed, with my assistance. I couldn't take that, it took me two or three years ..." he trailed off.

"When I got home," said Boyer, "I stayed home for a week before I'd go anyplace. I just stayed home ... just home."

Returning his thoughts to the battlefield, Boyer added that "After a while I got the impression a lot of guys stopped caring."

"You take a town, there's another town; you cross a river, there's another river; you go over a mountain, there's another mountain," said DeLuca. "You know, sometimes you're just so beat, you don't care."

Barbara Landin

All of the war veterans know what it's like to exist 24 hours a day, seven days a week, eating and resting whenever you can, sleeping for months in a muddy hole, using the same steel helmet for a soup pot, laundry bowl and other necessities. Some found themselves in 10 degree weather without coats, and yes, men did have to take clothing from the dead in order to survive themselves.

"From the time I left Wooster to the day I came back, I can see every moment of every day like a movie in my mind," said DeLuca. "I can fast forward and rewind and see it over and over again.

"I can't believe I did what I did," said DeLuca, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "That's why it's hard to tell. If you don't believe it yourself, how can you expect somebody else to believe it?

"It's so brutal and if you've got any morals you throw them out the window or you're dead. If you try to hold your morals you're not going to make it. You've got to be -- just an animal."

"How is it possible?" mused Boyer. "I don't know, I can't explain it."

"The first time I was on the line, I was concealed, and I followed a German," said DeLuca. "I had him in my sights. I couldn't pull the trigger. I was taught 'don't do this,' but it didn't take long to change."

"After while it got just like hunting a rabbit," interjected Jester.

"You wonder if some of them had you in their sights and just couldn't pull the trigger," added DeLuca.

"Don't forget, that guy was trying to kill you, and would, if he got a second chance," added Jester.

DeLuca continued, "We used to say, 'Is this trip necessary?' After we saw Dachau, we thought, 'Well, it was necessary."'

"We've had 55 years of peace," said Nolletti.

"I feel proud that I was involved in a part of history," added Boyer.

"Amen" echoed his fellow veterans.

The veterans interviewed today included:

Barbara Landin of Wooster is a veteran of Desert Shield/Storm/Calm, serving in the United Arab Emirates, attached to Shaw Air Force Base. She served as a disaster preparedness technician, departing the U.S. in August 1990 and returning in March 1991. Her duties involved determining what chemical, biological or nuclear substances were used in weapons that exploded, testing after the fact and working with decontamination efforts. She is continuing to serve in the Air National Guard. She is commander of Isaiah N. Kieffer Post 1081 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and holds the honor of being the first female commander.

Lloyd Boyer of Wooster is a World War II veteran, who served in the Third Army, 12th Corps of U.S. Army in the European Theater from August 1944 to June 1946. He also served approximately 19 years in the Army Reserves.

Joseph DeLuca served in the European Theater and was with Company C, 411th Regiment, 103rd Infantry Division from October 1943 to June 1946.

Thurman Jester saw action in World War II from December 1943 to 1946, serving with the U.S. Army. He arrived in Africa, moving on to Casablanca then Sicily and mainland Italy. He drove a tank with a 90mm gun.

Ralph Nolletti served from December 1943 to May 1946 in the European Theater with Company E of the 41st Armored Regiment, Second Army.

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