Biography of Gino Marnoni
PFC, Perigeux, Orleans, and Dreux AFB, France US Army, Cold War
See All the Fabulous Sights of Europe Courtesy of the U.S. Army.
When I graduated from college in 1961, World War II and the Korean War were behind us, but draft was still official policy so I should not have been surprised when I got my draft notice.
When I lost my student exemption it was unofficial policy that if you worked for the federal government you wouldn't be drafted, so in August of 1961 I joined the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics in D.C. where I worked in a very large room with many young men who, like me, were hoping to avoid the draft. But everything had changed in May, the month I graduated, when President Kennedy authorized secret operations against the Vietcong and sent helicopters and 400 green berets to South Vietnam.
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-timeline
In the few months I worked there I watched the young men in that room disappear one-by-one until my name was called in October. I did have one memorable day before leaving the capital. My uncle, a member of Congress, gave me a ticket to President Kennedy's State of the Union address. I was in the balcony when Jackie came through a side door and passed in front of me. I remember the awed silence as she walked by. A few weeks later, on February 2nd I was on a train to Fort Gordon, Georgia.
There I was, finally free to be on my own earning a living, but it lasted only 5 months before I had to report for duty. I didn't want to be in the army and I was very angry that I lost my exemption while those who became school teachers did not. As I remember the early 1960s it seemed everyone in college at that time had a really low opinion of the army so I expected 2 years of misery as a "government issue" (GI) disciplined arbitrarily by incompetent officers and hated by red neck regular recruits.
But 57 years passed since I was discharged so I considered the possibility that the1960s weren't as I remember them. So I searched for validation and found an official document published in 2015 that covers the U.S. Army from 1953-1965. Here are a few excerpts that are consistent with the attitudes of the early 60s:
Draft calls fell from a high of 472,000 in 1953 to 87,000 in 1960. By that time, the percentage of draftees that made up the Army had fallen to 20 percent.
Recruiting during periods of economic prosperity is always challenging, and the boom years of the 1950s were no exception.
For the bright and ambitious, the civilian sector offered a degree of opportunity with which the Army could not compete.
A 1959 survey of men recently discharged from the Army found that many considered Regular Army non-commissioned officers to be "low level" men who couldn't meet the competition outside the Army and who were merely marking time until their retirement.
In a television series called The Big Picture the Army fully exploited its overseas mission too, with recruiting materials promising that recruits would get to see all the fabulous sights of Europe.
https://history.army.mil/html/books/076/76-3/cmhPub_76-3.pdf
The 1960s were as I remembered them but my expectations were proved wrong except for a few notable exceptions that reflect that era so I'll start with these and then get on with why, in retrospect, I'm pleased to have been drafted.
At boot camp one evening when we were on bivouac at the firing range I was selected to return to base at midnight for KP duty. My escort was a sergeant who was probably an alcoholic and built like heavy weight boxer who once beat the hell out of a drunk who wondered into the wrong barracks. I remember only one thing about that night. While I was mopping the floor he came up behind me and I could smell the alcohol as he repeated, "Move you son of a bitch and I'll kill you." I didn't move, and eventually he moved away. He was black, but I'm sure it was his perception of college graduates that made him hate me. In our daily lives I never experienced or witnessed racial animosity as a real and personal threat, but I did for the hate directed at college grad draftees.
In France, at an outpost near Orleans, I met and made friends with a black guy. We had a lot in common and as he told me, he had worked for a Jewish family who treated him very well so he felt no animosity toward whites. We hung out together for a week or two until the other blacks in the company told him he couldn't be friends with me. I understood when he told me. I knew he had to comply or be isolated by the other blacks who were united in their distrust of whites. When I wandered into the latrine one afternoon I was met by a group meeting. I was told I should leave, which I did without feeling threatened.
When I arrived at my first post in France I was met with the stupidity and hatred I expected of the regular army, though I want to make clear I'm not implying such incidences were typical of all regular army, but rather incidences that affirmed my expectations. When I arrived at my post in Perigeux, France I was met by soldiers, all regular army, hanging out the windows in a 3 story barracks. They were shouting at me, asking when I would be discharged. When I told them, it was apparent that as a draftee with a 2 year commitment I would get out sooner than all of them, they turned mean. When they learned I had a college degree, had two semesters of French, and that I was actually happy to be in France the hate worsened. To a man they hated France and the French who they called "Frogs" They harassed me continually until one day I exploded in the chow line and challenged an idiot. It was resolved, but I don't remember how. Another time, when I walked into a corner of the barracks I blundered into a low-grade sergeant's meeting with his group. He was really nasty, which I didn't expect so I reacted with a shrug and a grin and left. He followed and confronted me and in the same way as the sergeant at basic, threatened to beat the hell of me. Why? I concluded then, and still believe now, that he assumed I was a smart-ass uppity college grad, so no matter how I reacted he would have interpreted in that way. But soon a new 6 foot 8 inch draftee arrived, having been drafted one day before he was too old for the draft and one day after his release from prison. I never asked him why prison, we had a lot in common so we became friends. I was not bothered again.
Otherwise there was only the strict discipline enforced by officers and noncoms. I performed my duties with diligence, but I wasn't a gung ho soldier so I got my fair share of discipline, which I never object to because I knew it was necessary.
Basic training at Fort Gordon, Georgia was just that, basic. My advanced training was in wired communications, which in those days consisted of typing messages on paper tape with an ASR 33 Teletype, which were then run through a mini computer tape reader. It was simple and typing skill was emphasized. I had taken a typing class in high school so I was typing at 80 words a minute. On graduation I was offered a grade raise to stay on as an instructor. I turned it down hoping to draw a better assignment, which I got. I was elated when it was France.
However in August 1962, before shipping off to France I was assigned to a communications group supporting Swift Strike II, a two-week war game "described as a war "that pitted the 101st and the 5th Mechanized from Fort Reilly against the 82nd and the 2nd ID from Fort Benning". It was a great experience even with the 100 degrees and 3 battalions of mosquitoes. We were hauled in army deuce-and-a-half trucks through public and private fields and forests, through South Carolina into North Carolina. I can still feel the mosquitoes swarming around my head and the itching of the 20 or more bites on my face while hunkered down against a tree in a forest while jets screamed overhead dropping flour bombs. The enemy captured our truck at the end of the first week, leaving us without tents or a means to get to a shower. So the final week I slept on fresh pine boughs each night, my body a smorgasbord for the spiders that hid during the day. During the day our duty as I remember it was to do nothing but sweat, scratch, and stink. We had no idea what was happening until a truck arrived and that took us to a bus bound for Fort Dix, New Jersey without giving us a chance to shower. Our first stop was the PX to get supplies. There were army wives shopping at the time and I can still picture them holding their noses and trying to avoid getting near. The next day I was given a week pass and, with the mean-looking bites still itching, I took a bus to western PA for a last visit with my family.
After my leave I boarded a troop ship, the USNS Maurice Rose that sailed to Bremerhaven, Germany. I have no recollection of that crossing, but I remember well the rough crossing back to New York, which I describe later.
When we docked at Bremerhaven I was given a train ticket to Gare Du Nord in Paris and a transfer to the local train bound for the city of Perigeux where I began my 19-month tour in France.
The base in Perigeux was a small plot of land in a suburb amid homes at the front and a swath of trees and small river at the rear. Including the motor pool it covered about as much as the grounds and parking lot of a medium-sized sport complex. At the center of operations were two large trailers housing radio equipment for encrypted Morse code communication. It must have been sensitive information because we were put on high alert for possible threats when Berlin was in chaos. Normally my duty consisted of painting the barracks and rotating night patrol along the perimeter. During the crisis I was on 2 on 4 off guard duty for 2 weeks. On my 2 hours I did nothing but circle the vans with an M16. It was bitterly cold at night, and I remember an officer telling me I didn't have to run around the trailers as I had been, but I said if it's okay I'll keep running so I don't freeze.
The French were adamant that the US military leave France so when Perigeux closed I was reassigned to a base without a name, a muddy swath of an outpost bulldozed out of a dense forest a mile from a small main base, which to me always remained nameless, about 10 miles north of Orleans. A group of WACS were in a swath nearby, which we weren't permitted to even go near, and I can't recall ever having seen one even at the main base. The post had no official assignment except to inventory us until we were either shipped to Vietnam or released from service. Our Asian vaccinations were kept up-to-date and it was no secret we were kept prepared for possible reassignment to Vietnam. The latrines were outhouses suspended over ditches. The winter I was there the temperatures were the lowest on record in France. All the buildings were Quonset huts with no insulation, heated by oil burning stoves prone to overheat and "explode" oily smoke. Well, at least the mud froze.
My first assignment was the motor pool, a large, slimy plot of land suitable for raising pigs. On my first day, before roll call, I slipped unnoticed into the forest and walked to the main base where I drank coffee and bowled until the day's duty finished. I did this for a month before they caught me. When they did I argued that I was capable of being more of an asset in administration, so instead of being punished I filled an immediate need for a payroll clerk. I got into trouble there too for skipping morning roll call and the base sweep picking up debris to the tune of a sergeant yelling, "I wanna see nothing but elbows and assholes." My penalty was 2 weeks restricted to base, which I paid without complaint.
As the payroll clerk it was my job to deliver pay to off-base personnel. I would strap on a 45 without ammo (I could never figure out why the weapon if no ammo, but I liked the feel of it). One low life from our company killed an old woman who caught him burglarizing her home. He hit her with a broomstick, knocking her down a flight of stairs. Just for the excitement of trying I went to the prison to deliver his pay. I got as far as the second level before getting turned away. The gendarmes seemed amazed I even tried. I heard later that at his trial his face didn't look so good. The French decided to deport him, and I presume he ended up at Leavenworth.
My travel had been limited to trains and whatever was interesting - or not - near the station. That changed when at Orleans I bought a 1952 Citroen from a guy whose tour was over. I paid $125, put 10,000 kilometers on it, paid $100 when the transmission failed, crashed it, and then sold it for $75 when I left. I made $100 a month, now the starting pay is over $2,000. I'm still sorry I didn't take it back with me. It's a classic with flying fenders, gearshift on the dashboard, a windshield that cranks open, and doors that open the wrong way, which proved a problem a few times when a drunk buddy tried to puke out the door and I had to slam on the brakes to keep the door from unhinging in the wind. The crash occurred on New Years Eve after a party at a noncom club in Orleans. By the time we left I was mildly drunk so when my buddy told me he should drive. I gave him the keys without realizing he was more polluted than me. On the drive back we approached an s-curve I knew well. I said, "Jerry slow down this is a bad curve." Instead he stepped on the gas, lost control and the car flew through a fence into a field. We weren't injured and fortunately I was able turn and get back onto the road. The bumper broke loose and was dragging, so when we got back the dragging was so loud it woke everyone. The next day I paid $10 to a motor pool mechanic to weld the bumper to the trunk.
How fortunate I was to have been given the freedom to tour Europe by car - while stationed at a place I didn't want to be that proved to be the place I needed to be when I needed to be there!
It didn't matter that the car had no trunk, which made for quite a challenge on long trips with 3 guys and luggage in a space smaller than an old Volkswagen, It didn't matter that the engine that wasn't much larger than my lawn tractor, or that the air filter vibrated loose every hundred miles until I wrapped it with duct tape. It let me explore local restaurants, bars, and shops made it possible to meet and get to know a few locals more than in passing. That 1952 Citroen made it over the French Alps, the Swiss Alps, and the Bavarian Alps. The fondest memories of my time in the army in France were courtesy of that beat up old car.
Early during my stay in Perigeux, I looked for non-tourist bars where I could practice my French. I became a sort of regular at one bar popular with old veterans from Vietnam, Dien Bien Phu to them. The first time there they approached me when I ordered a glass of wine in French. They gathered round excited to let me know they were veterans, and several of them formed a parachute dropping with their hands saying, "parachutist." I have only one other memory of a specific visit. I had been paying 5 cents U.S. for a small glass of wine, but on this day when it dropped to 3 cents I knew I was accepted as a regular. On this day the other regulars were talking about the wine they couldn't afford, making pinching motions with their fingers imagining each grape was crushed by hand. They had a grand time of it and it was obvious they had never had wine better than in this bar, which was probably a fourth pressing augmented with a coloring agent. The day after drinking there my lips and teeth were purple and my bowels a little uneasy. I loved that bar, the friendly old veterans, and even the cheap wine.
I didn't make friends with any locals while in Orleans, but I do recall that at a restaurant in the city with army friends I had a fairly long conversation in French with a communist. I was interested in him because communism was the populist ideal among the common folk. He was friendly, not angry as I imagined all communists to be so I thought it was because he wasn't a card-carrying member, but a populist sold on the communist agenda. I chalked up that conversation as a - WOW - I had a dialogue with a real French communist in French - but my buddies didn't understand so they were amazed.
It was in Orleans that I had my first taste of escargot, roasted snails served steeped in a garlic butter sauce and eaten with fantastic French bread. I loved them, ordered them wherever they were on the menu, and always they were superb.
From that time on, both in Orleans and Dreux Air Base, my next assignment when the outpost at Orleans was abandoned, I spent a considerable amount of time in authentic French restaurants as opposed to whatever passed as a restaurant catering to the military. The best were to be found in the old sections of town where the streets were narrow and the restaurants small and simple places catering to the locals. We, I usually dined with one or another of my buddies, when we walked in for the first time were always met with deep suspicion, expecting we would get drunk and trash the place. Rumors and some bad incidences at places catering to military were good cause for them to suspect us because "drunk and disorderly" was the stereotype for American soldiers. But we would sit quietly talking low and then place our order, eat and thank the owner and leave. At one I remember at a family restaurant the waitress was a pretty you girl about 8 to 9 years old. That too was not uncommon.
I didn't make friends with any locals while in Orleans; that came later I was reassigned to the Air Force base at Dreux, about 50 miles west of Paris. It was a paratroop training base as far I could determine since it was common to see low-flying planes dropping paratroopers over the runway. I was billeted in a large room with private bath, with only one roommate and a cafeteria just down the hall. There was no official purpose for us at this base either. I was a payroll clerk and a volunteer part-time night ambulance driver at the base hospital.
I have 2 photographs, one of three of us soldiers wearing our army jackets and another of the husband and wife owners of the bar where the photographs were taken. I don't remember the name of the bar, but it was very local to Dreux. The patrons were a friendly group, and husband and wife were super people. Getting to know them was typical. We were met with suspicion, we talked quietly, then I spoke French to the owner and they opened up, I had some really nice conversations with them over time, and I remember how they teased me about my accent and ignorance of colloquial terms. Once, to excuse myself to go to the bathroom, I said, in the only way knew how, “Je vais faire peepee.”
There were a number of restaurants in the vicinity of Dreux and Chateauneuf-en-Thymerais, about 12 miles south of Dreux. They closed for about 4 hours after lunch before opening for dinner, but they were usually amenable to having us stay drinking until dinner so by dinner we were really happy and hungry.
There were upscale restaurants as well, one of which I went to with a buddy born in France who spoke fluent French. We both liked to try new foods, so looking over the menu we found Andouiettes. Neither of us knew what they were but we agreed it's French so it has to be great. We didn't know they were made from the stomach lining of pigs together with various assorted innards normally stuffed inside the pig's intestine. But as served they weren't stuffed so they looked like 2 wet dog turds. Again we agreed, it's a French dish so it must be good. Well, we couldn't swallow the first bite. It tasted like a dog turd soaked in kerosene, and the terrible aroma burned up to our eyes. We looked at each other; spit into our napkins, and sat there without eating for only a few minutes before the proprietor, a nasty woman, asked it the meal was okay. My friend said we weren't really hungry. She offered to replace the dish if we found it wanting. When we declined, she kicked us out.
The day Kennedy was assassinated it was evening in France. Three of us were at a bar where we wanted a night of martinis. After describing what they are the bartender brought them with a large bowl of green olives. That worked for us so we were pretty high when he came over, very agitated, and told us about Kennedy. The French loved Kennedy and how much so showed in his face. We managed to get back to base without incident, and spent at least a week on lockdown and mourning ceremonies.
As a final word on local restaurants, bars, and food, I would add that often, probably too often, I drove to a local market and returned to the barracks with bread, wine, and cheese for a small feast with one or two others. Since then US wines improved dramatically but at that time the French wines were far superior, and the bread and cheeses are for the most part still far better. When I didn't go into town, we would snack on beer and chips from the cafeteria down the hall.
I would not wish to change anything about those times, not even the post-discharge crash diet to lose the 40 pounds I gained.
I drove Le Mans and Normandy for weekend outings as well, without friends. Both trips were memorable. I went to the 1963 "24 Hours of Le Mans" expecting an exciting time just watching the start, the cars flying past, and mingling with the crowd. I was able to position myself at a fence with a great view of a long straight stretch. I took a lot of photographs, all on slides, but a video of that race shows what I witnessed, but I that was not all I found interesting. I was savvy about the French "Pissoirs", the open latrines on the streets, so I wasn't surprised when I went to the men's room and entered the door marked for men next to the one marked for women and found both doors were entries for the same room. There were men lined up at the latrines along the wall, and women going into cubicles. What I could not figure out was why two doors. I suppose it was a joke played on foreigners. Standing next to a small group of obviously upper-class young English men, I heard for the first time how they spoke. In the working-class town where I grew up our view of the English was that they all acted uppity and talked snooty. Their conversation was on par with that old parochial view which I had long forgotten, On the way back to base I saw a young French girl selling flowers at a stand along the road. I stopped and bought some flowers then I asked if I could kiss her. She smiled and said yes, so I kissed her, gave her the flowers, and went on my way. I rack that up as a great weekend. You can watch that race here:
https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/video-the-1963-24-hours-of-le-mans-in-color/
That innocent moment along the road leads me to question how much I should say about sowing my wild oats. It would beggar the mind to believe any single soldier would not at least try to sow some wild oats, but even if that were not true my experiences wouldn't be cause for a modern pre-teen to blush. However, I won't go into details, which were also memorable but definitely no more scandalous than scenes from movies on Netflix and Prime.
I don't know what it's like now in France, but then in the 1960's it seemed the bartenders at most roadside bars and bars near train stations were available women. At a bar near a station during my only train trip somewhere in Southern France I was talking with my buddy and I noticed the man next to us could understand so I started a conversation. He told us he had spent time stationed in the states as a naval officer. He spoke perfect American English so we talked for some time, and among other French customs he told us about the bars.
I went alone to Normandy to spend time on the beach. The first night I parked along the access road next to the beach, and that's where I slept. I woke when two Gendarmes tapped on the window. When I showed them my ID and explained why I slept in my car, they gave me the okay to stay. I had planned to do the same the next evening but instead I cleaned up at a restroom near the beach and went to a small but very nice bar across the road from a large casino. I sat next to a man I was able to communicate with well in French. I thought of him as an "older" man but he was probably in his 40s. The bartender was a beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous, young woman probably not much older than my 24 years. My new friend told me $6.00 US. Later, she and he talked in French fast enough that I didn't understand a word. When he asked where I was staying I told him I was flat broke and would sleep in my car. He said, no way. He told me I would stay with him; he would put his daughter in bed with him and I would sleep in her bed. In the morning he took me for coffee and breakfast. I thanked him and headed back to base knowing that his kindness was his way of showing he considered me worthy enough to be "French."
In the summer before my discharge I flew to London for a long weekend where I stayed at a boarding house in Russel Square. I met a young priest on his own for a while as punishment for some offense. We hit it off when we learned both of us liked opera. We went to Covent Gardens for La Traviata, an opera I had come to appreciate while in college when I listened to it in the library a number of times. The dinner scene made me want to join the party, and I found the death scene so memorable I memorized parts of it, which I would sing in the shower. It was great so the next evening we went for "Love of Three Oranges", a really weird opera that opens with a soprano singing, dressed as a Viking. Suddenly a man in a balcony to the right of the stage stands and yells that he's tired of these damned kinds of opera. There's a hush of course as the soprano leaves the stage to be replace with three dressed as oranges. That's all I care to remember. My final night there, after dinner, I joined a conversation with three Jewish girls who were arguing about whether they should visit Germany. One pretty one was really angry with the others who wanted to go. For her the holocaust was still too recent and her memories still too disturbing. We spent the night together. I returned to base.
I have fine memories, and photographs as well, of the adventures on the drives into Spain, Italy, and Germany.
Beginning while at Orleans, part of my travel expense came from coupons handed out on payday that were good for a carton of cigarettes at $1.50. I would stand at the end of the pay line offering to buy coupons. Any concierge at any hotel would buy them. Cigarettes in Europe were very expensive throat-burners so American cigarettes were in great demand. I remember buying and selling coupons was lucrative, but I don't remember what I got for them.
The first major trip in my car was south to Barcelona, from there along the Mediterranean coast to Nice, north over the French Alps and back to Orleans. I had two buddies with me whose names I don't remember, but the trip I remember well. We stopped along the way to buy sausage, cheese, and wine, and then spent a few hours in Tolouse for a break and some cappuccino. Somewhere along the way, I don't remember exactly how, we made it to St. Tropez for a quick look the playground of the elite. The bay was beautiful but we had no desire to mix with the in crowd. In Barcelona we stayed at a cheap hotel and got a room directly under a Flamenco dance studio. Hung over in the mornings the stomping above would wake us feeling pretty crappy. The hotel bar was a prostitute hangout with a twist that's totally bizarre. A number of the girls spoke English so I chatted up one of them asking about the woman translating a note for one of the prostitutes. She told me that many young American soldiers came to the bar and fell in love, and then wrote back emotional love letters the girls cherished. Even more bizarre than the young men falling in love was that the prostitutes did as well, and they were not interested in anyone - like me - who thought it was a joke. After I sat and chatted at a few tables I was informed I wasn't welcome there because I wasn't serious.
It was in Nice that a chance comment played a part in fixing the path that began with my draft and ended where my life is now. We were disappointed in Nice and especially of the shore along the Mediterranean. One of my friends described how much more beautiful was the coast in Southern California. I remembered that. Two weeks after I was discharged February 1964 I contracted to deliver a new Cadillac to Los Angeles.
The longest trip by far was to Geneva and over the Swiss Alps, dropping down to Turin, then Genoa and south to Naples, and from there north over part of the Apennines to Milan and on to Lago di Como on the Swiss border. From there east and then north over the Bavarian Alps to Munich then Karlsruhe, and finally into France and Dreux. On this trip we would stop along the road and spend the night in our sleeping bags one night and on the next night we would stay at whatever small hotel was available for a shower, a good meal, and a bed. One night it was late before we came upon a field of soft grass. We laid out our sleeping bags and slept well, that is until morning when we woke to barking. We were at the bottom of a hill. Looking up we saw a large dog racing toward us with his master behind wielding a shotgun. We hustled and got everything in the car and drove off as the dog was sniffing around the car and before the shotgun got there.
I have a selfie of three of us at the peak of the road along the Alps before it dropped into Italy. We're sitting in a field with cheese and wine with an Alpine peak behind us, possibly the Matterhorn. It was a wild ride down to Turin, the slope so steep and long I worried the brakes would give out. My first stop in Turin was a gas station where immediately a group of young men came over checking out the Citroen. They kept asking what is it? They never saw such a car. There was no tunnel then and few, if any, old Citroen ventured into Italy. From there we drove to a cliff on the Mediterranean coast west of Genoa where we spent the night. It started raining around midnight, so we moved under the car as best we could. It wasn't long before rivulets of water hit us. Soaked, we tried sleeping in the car, the three of us with our luggage and wet sleeping bags. The next morning was clear, and somehow we cleaned ourselves up and stopped somewhere beyond Genoa along the coast for lunch. We decided to try octopus, not knowing it would be served with the tentacles visible above what looked like a bowl of dirty dishwater. But, unlike the Andouiettes they were really good, and since then I order them whenever I can.
On the road south to Naples, I don't remember the time, but it was dark and ours was the only car on a 4-lane road so I was in the far left fast lane. Out of dark behind us I saw headlights approaching, and then in seconds the car was on our bumper with the driver beeping his horn. Then suddenly he was beside us, the driver slowing down enough to give me the "Italian Salute", (with your arm tucked to your side, your hand raised, palm facing forward half-cupped like you're holding something, then you twist it sharply to the left while raising your arm rapidly). It originated in Italy, but you probably know it here as an "Up Yours." It is still a favored signal in Italy, as is the dangerous speeding. In 2002, driving north from Milan to Lago di Como my nephew was driving in the fast lane. I kept my eye on the rear and watched a car in the distance come on our bumper so fast he must have been doing at least a hundred mph. No beep or salute this time, just a hard swing for the car to pass us on the right then disappear ahead as fast as he came from behind. There are signs along all the major roads warning about staying at the speed limit. They're universally ignored and there are terrible accidents because of that.
In Naples we stayed at a boarding house with a strict curfew and the doors were locked at midnight. I dropped off my buddies and returned to a bar for a while and found myself locked out. I spent a peaceful night in my car, the only car and the only person in the piazza along the city docks. To try the same today I would be dead before dawn. That's about all I remember from Naples. But 40 miles inland is Montevergine, a small mountain peak with an historic Monastery at the top where my mother had told me one of the priests was my cousin.
We took the only way to get to the top, a funiculare, or lift on rails identical to one in Pittsburgh that takes you from the river docks to Mount Washington. As all my ancestors came from Italy, half from near Naples, I can't count the times I heard the song Funiculi, Funicula whose lyrics are in the Neapolitan dialect. It was composed in 1880 to mark the first funiculare on Mount Vesuvius not far from Montevergine. Within a year a million copies of the sheet music were sold. It's still popular, sung even by opera stars and flash groups. It's worth a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=song+funiculi+funicula+
We were fortunate my cousin was free because he was in trouble for some infraction and had time on his hands. We had lunch and what conversation was possible with my poor Italian and his poor English, but he was a fun guy, a real anglophile. He kept saying "Holy Cow" followed by some slang he had learned. Overall it was a good time, but it was unfortunate that for some reason his only notion of where my other relatives had emigrated from was south of Naples and he believed there were none remaining. The reality was that I could see Montefredane in the Province of Avellino from the monastery, still a beautiful country area where my mother's parents had lived and where I still have relatives.
When night fell the three of us ate at an outdoor cafe below the monastery. It was a warm evening and the cafe was strung with soft lights. As we sat drinking wine we noticed that at a table of older men one stood and got the attention of the others when they had finished eating. He proceeded to sing an aria from an opera. When he finished another stood and sang until all had sung while the others sat quietly. It was a scene worthy of a movie - ten old Italian gentlemen just enjoying the hell out of life. We stayed at motel within short walking distance of the cafe. Weary, we retired early, but around 11pm the same men walked past still singing.
When writing of this trip and thinking of my youthful days in a large Italian family and community I realized how familiar I was with old Italians enjoying life, singing and dancing, long before I traveled to Italy.
From Naples I drove straight north to Milan, which is famous for, among other things, Il Duomo, the magnificent fifth largest cathedral in the world consecrated in 1418. It's set in the middle of a huge piazza adjacent to an area of historical buildings. What is significant for this trip is that I was able to park within a block of the Duomo. To get there in 2002 we had to park and take a train to the last stop and walk. In 1963 there were few tourists in the piazza; in 2002 it was jammed.
From Milan it's about an hour's drive to Como, the last exit before entering Switzerland. Exiting there and driving several miles along northwest road bordering Lake Como I turned left at a sign pointing to the Val d'Intelvi, a valley with several villages in the mountain range between Lake Como in Italy and Lake Lugano in Switzerland.
The road was a series of switchback turns on a short, steep climb to Castiglione d'Inelvi, the village where my father was born. There we stayed with the relatives on my grandmother's side. They treated me like royalty and gave a grand feast for my two friends and me one evening. The next day they took us to a famous museum with classic sculptures and to the gate farther along the road where the resistance had caught Mussolini and shot him before taking him to Milan where they hung him by his heels.
The gravestones in Italy are decorated with photographs and heart-felt farewells. Here in Castiglione it seemed they nearly all were related to me, and that they were very well off - a sign on the local park credited a relative for donating the land. My father's mother had told us she was like a princess there, and told stories of carrying food to the field hands on my grandfather's farm. Emigrating, he had to leave it all behind. In 2002 my Italian friend found the records that proved his ownership, and another told me about the law at that time. We don't know why my grandfather left; we only know that at 13 years he visited New York with his father. I thought, hey, I could have been born a wealthy Italian until I realized my father would have not met my mother and I wouldn't exist.
By 2002 the village had become a comfortable and expensive retirement area where my relatives no longer lived. When I stopped one man to ask about my family he said he just retired there from Milan, at another house the woman said she was German and this was her summer home. Another said they never heard of any of the last names of my ancestors, though plaques in the cemetery are filled with their names and photographs.
From there I drove east and then north through the Italian area that had belonged to Germany at one time and where Italians still speak German. Crossing the border I climbed the Bavarian Alps to Munich. I didn't stop as we were near the end of our leaves. We did a quick drive around the city and then drove north to Karlsruhe where we did the same before heading west through France back to Dreux.
My way to New York to be discharged went in reverse, a drive to Gare Du Nord and then on board ship at Bremerhaven. My photographs show well how rough it was, with heavy waves sweeping over the bow and flowing down through hatches on the decks where we bunked. There were a lot of seasick soldiers, but it didn't bother me. I went to the top deck and, against strict orders, had a guy holding me by the belt while I took photos through the topside door. Not far from the position where the Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic the ship hauled-to and held the bow into the wind and waves for 24 hours. Docking in New Your City we were discharged quickly and without fanfare. I made my way to the airport bus and after a short choppy flight was back home in Pittsburgh.
So it was that from some old photographs, notes, and sharp memories I could see what I could not imagine when I was drafted; that the timing was perfect for me to be offered 19 months in France, to travel Europe, to have a life not possible otherwise, and in retrospect to understand how little I paid for the grand adventure I remember, all courtesy of the U.S. Army,
Four months after arriving I had to serve 2 weeks on reserve in San Pedro where I met a new friend who I then shared an apartment with in Manhattan Beach. At a party at our apartment I briefly met an Australian girl who was with a date. A few months later my roommate and I moved into a bachelor house in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles with a third guy. I won't describe it but it was really something, with a view of the San Bernadino mountains in the distance. Our new roommate started dating a girl in Manhattan beach who he referred to as "Fresh off the boat Australian girl." One Sunday evening he drove to take her to the house. Her roommate had watched a Frankenstein movie and didn't want to stay alone so she joined them. On the way her they told her "there's another guy there but he's not your type." When they arrived I was seated at the foot of a circular staircase from the street level. I looked up and saw the girl I had met in Manhattan Beach. I was blown away. We have been married for 52 year, and my son and one daughter live in Australia and one not far from us. Until the pandemic we would spend 2 months there twice a year. I took up Muay Thai at 77 and train here and in Brisbane. That photo in the Brisbane gym is from 2 years ago.
----- Gino Marnoni
Orleans 1963, coldest winter on record, fur cap off only for this photo
Ready to deliver pay to off-base personnel in Orleans
Ed Staub, Me, Ross at our favorite bar in Dreux
Husband and Wife owners of our favorite bar
My room at Dreux, far cry from the huts at Orleans
A close look at a new 1952 Citroen
My 1952 Citroen at the south end of Dreux Air Base
Photo-op near Orleans on the trip to Italy
Wine, bread, cheese stop on Swiss Alps before dropping into Italy
February 1964, Gino on the deck of the General Maurice Rose
It was cold, really cold, but no one cared. We were on our way home
Photo I took while buddy holding my belt to keep me inside
Sailors looking up at water dripping down through the holds
Early evening heading west toward New York after the storm
Another place the draft took me
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