Editorial from the Jamestown Post-Journal, May 24 2015
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The Florence American Cemetery is pictured in the background. Pictured above, clockwise from left, Mike Lamancuso, foreground, with three friends in Italy in 1944; LaMancuso, a World War II combat infantryman, at his home; the gravesite of a soldier from the 361st Regiment, 91st Infantry Division, Elson Behnke, who was killed on Oct. 9, 1944.
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There can be poignant memories for military veterans when it comes to Memorial Day. Their remembrances are often specific, filled with names of those they knew who didn’t come home. So it is for Mike LaMancuso, a World War II combat infantryman. It is a day he remembers his buddies who didn’t come back from the fighting in Italy.
Mike was wounded on Friday, Oct. 13, 1944, hit in the leg by a bullet from a German sniper. Four days earlier, on Oct. 9, another soldier from the 361st Regiment, 91st Infantry Division, Elson Behnke, wasn’t as “lucky.” He was killed in the same area. Two young American soldiers, far from home, one wounded, one killed, linked together by an American Army Division fighting to liberate another country. Mike made it home. Elson Behnke is buried at the Florence American Cemetery, near the battlefield where he fell. Though they hadn’t personally met, it is men like Elson Behnke that Mike LaMancuso thinks about on Memorial Day.
Mike has been back to Livergnano, Italy, where he was hit on a Friday the 13th that he will never forget. At the time, Mike’s outfit had been in ferocious combat with the Germans along what was called the “Gothic Line,” Germany’s last major defensive line in the mountains north of Florence. It was the same general area from which two future U.S. Senators, Bob Dole and Dan Inouye, would be medevac’d because of their wounds.
The way Mike describes it: “I could speak Italian, but most of the GI’s couldn’t, so they called the place I was wounded ‘Liver and Onions.’ We had gotten ahead of our lines and were pretty much surrounded by the Germans. We had taken cover behind a house, but were still exposed to enemy fire, and a German sniper shot me in the leg, breaking it in two places. Our unit had to wait until dark before they could get me back to a battalion aid station for treatment.”
Today, over 70 years later, it is hard to believe that the beautiful, pristine countryside near Florence could have been a killing field. But the cemetery reminds you — 4,398 headstones and 1,409 names on the Wall of the Missing, mark the struggle and are a testament to the sacrifice and bravery of American soldiers during the Second World War.
Most Americans who travel to Italy want to visit Florence to see the incredible art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance. While there, they should also take the 20-minute trip southwest toward Siena to experience the silence and awe of the Florence American Cemetery. It makes you proud and humbled to be an American. It is an especially powerful visit on Memorial Day, when there are American and Italian flags flying at each grave marker on this sacred ground.
Another way to remember Memorial Day, if you are celebrating it here at home, would be to stop and thank Mike LaMancuso and those like him who 70 years ago were fighting for values Americans deeply believe in, in far off places like Livergnano (“Liver and Onions”), Italy.
Rolland Kidder is a commissioner of the American Battle Monuments Commission, which is responsible for the care and maintenance of 25 overseas American military cemeteries.
