Tuesday, March 11, 2014

"William 'Wild Bill' Guarnere dies; was member of WWII 'Band of Brothers'"

"William Guarnere didn't have to go to war."

"At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, he was building tanks at the old Baldwin Locomotive Works, a job considered crucial to the war effort and good for an exemption from military service."

"But Bill didn't take it. He enlisted in the Army paratroops on Aug. 31, 1942, and the rest is legend."

Stars and Stripes via Ace of Spades

6 comments:

AllenS said...

You can enlist in the Army, but you have to qualify to be a paratrooper. Not all do.

Unknown said...

Guarnere, the South Philadelphia kid who earned the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts among other decorations in World War II combat, who lost a leg at the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium in 1944 and returned home to live a productive life unimpaired by his injury, died Saturday. He was 90 and lived in South Philly.

Wow. Godspeed and thank you, Wild Bill, for your bravery and courage.

Revenant said...

He was quite a character and one hell of a brave man. I recommend the book he wrote with "Babe" Heffron, "Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends".

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Twitter was down for repairs earlier. That's why the tweet went down.

Calypso Facto said...

Sad to think we're replacing his kind with pajama boys.

chickelit said...

I just started watching that series for the first time.