My grandfather served in World War II as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division. He participated in Operation Market Garden, parachuting into the Netherlands with the mission of capturing bridges over the Rhine River.
He was captured by the Germans and was being transported to Stalag VIIA in Moosburg when he was liberated by a group of Russian soldiers who had strayed behind German lines.
However, my grandfather and the Russian soldiers were soon recaptured by German forces.
Before they could be sent to the POW camp, they were freed by Yugoslav partisans, only to be almost immediately captured again—this time by Chetniks, royalist Serbian partisans.
After two days in Chetnik captivity, they were overrun by Communists, who mistook my grandfather for a German soldier.
He spent a week as a prisoner of the small Communist group before being liberated by Italian soldiers, who then mistook him for a Serbian sympathizer. They transported him to Italy, where he was held as a prisoner and assigned to labor, sending him to Sicily to rebuildi fortifications.
Despite his efforts, the language barrier prevented him from convincing his Sicilian captors that he was an American soldier. Determined to regain his freedom, my grandfather escaped the camp, stole a small fishing boat, and sailed back to mainland Italy, abandoning the boat in Tropea.
In Tropea, he was befriended by a local fisherman who helped him make contact with American occupying forces. Before leaving the village, my grandfather struck up a romance with the fisherman’s daughter.
After the war, he returned to Tropea to propose to the beautiful Italian woman. They married and had four children—one of whom is my father.
Whenever someone tells me that a setback or misfortune will ruin their life, I remember my grandfather’s story and share it with them.
Everything is connected—what may seem bad today can lead to something good tomorrow, and vice versa. Life is change.