Part VIII – Beneath a Falling Sky
https://youtu.be/Rgh0taJVhWY We slept in a large room on straw, men and women. At night we did our business in some buckets, which we sometimes exchanged for buckets of water to drink… we ate leftovers from the Americans, which we collected in buckets. Antonio Caira – Resident of Viticuso, Italy during WWII. Preface The story that […]
Part VII – A Mission in the Mountains
An artillery piece in position not far from the village of Acquafondata. Here it is the same everyday, up at 400 hours, at readiness all day, bombs, air combat, heat flies and to bed at 10.00 in the evening. It it tremendously wearing and one can’t get used to it. I don’t enjoy the southern […]
Part VI – Acquafondata
https://youtu.be/IO9DZCKf-bc Preface: The small municipality of Acquafondata lay high in the mountains at the nexus of the Winter Line and the Gustav Line, the fortified Axis defensive lines where Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring’s Army Group C made their stand against the US 5th Army as it pushed towards Rome. This tiny handful of less than a […]
In Another Country
As has been the case several times during the telling of letters home, the next chapter was one in which I came in thinking I knew what story I wanted to tell, but had it completely reshaped from what I found. It all started with a simple entry in a US Army Morning Report, the daily […]
Part V – Africa
https://youtu.be/mgCKgRdUQvI?si=eBcRomWeUKotnt44 My Dearest Darling, Just a few lines honey to let you know I am just fine. Hoping you are the same…. Do you ever go to Indiana? I never did like Indiana much myself, but I would like to be there now. These Jerrys are not going to get me… How long do you think the […]
Part IV – Cristobol
https://youtu.be/Hwf9ITBf3s0 The metal of the long steel prep table was cold on Stanley’s outstretched hands. He looked down at them and around the galley. The large tins of spices. The gallon cans of beans, boxes of potatoes, giant jugs of olive oil. It was the third day of the quarantine on the USAT Cristobol which still stood […]
Part III – Going to War
https://vidacolorado.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Part-III-Going-to-War.mp4 Letters Home – Part III – Going to War As we stood over Granny’s bed in the hospice room we knew she didn’t have much time. Her body was frail, she had not been eating or drinking for days. The Lord was calling her home. Next to her bed, a shoebox and a second […]
Part II – The CCCs
https://vidacolorado.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/StanleyCCCFInal.mp4The morning fog hung on the fields and the frost still remained on the stalks of corn from last fall. Stan’s boots crunched over them in the Indiana morning. There was a road that led from Stoops farm where the boys were on their way out to do their days work past Grandpa Charlie’s and […]
A New Reckoning
When I set out to write about the story of my grandfather’s tour in World War II and his life leading up to it, in a way I knew the story that I wanted to tell: A man devoted to his country, his family, his men; a man who served honorably from the beginning to […]
Part I – A Fireside Chat
Pendleton County, Kentucky In the summer of 1934, Stanley Grimes was just past his 13th birthday. An energetic and slim young man with penetrating eyes, he had a sharp nose and thick dark hair that he wore slicked back which gave him the look of one of those Italian boys you heard about in […]
