Marine honored at veterans dinner
The retired Army colonel who was my jump master nearly 50 years ago in Army Europe and I were humping our gear off a Texas drop zone last week after a good landing.
My Airborne veteran brother and I continue to exit perfectly good aircraft, both as recreation and also as reverence for our World War II paratrooper predecessors. We jump with a veterans’ service nonprofit, Liberty Jump Team.
The team has sent more than 120 WWII veterans to revisit the battlefields of their youth and to reunite with surviving comrades of combat in Normandy, France, Holland and Bastogne, Belgium. Just a little over 100,000 of the 8 million Americans who served in World War II remain with us.
As a side benefit to the WWII veterans’ project, Airborne veterans and teammates get to jump from WWII-vintage C-47s of the kind shown in Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ epic mini-series “Band of Brothers.” And that is what Stu and I were doing in Texas while we shook off the aches and pains, our youth long vanished.
“You know the difference between a fairy tale and a war story?” retired colonel Stu Watkins asked, his grin little changed over a half century, as we packed in 50 pounds of gear. “With a fairy tale, it starts, ‘Once upon a time’ and the war story starts, ‘No kidding, Mom, there I was ... . ”
Jumping in Texas in advance of a trip to the D-Day battlefields of Normandy meant I missed one of the keystone Antelope Valley events leading up to Memorial Day, the annual Dinner of Community Support for the local nonprofit Vets4Veterans.
The group succeeds in raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to prevent veteran homelessness, help new veterans start college, provide therapy and deliver emergency assistance and groceries to veteran families in need.
At Friday’s dinner, the group honored one of its powerhouse volunteers, Tony Tortolano, a Marine Corps vet who “blew stuff up” with combat engineers, but whose time, like mine, was the Cold War.
At table with Tony were his best friends, his brother Star Wars fan buddy Allen Quinton and Allen’s grandfather, Palmer Andrews. Palmer is one of those youngest WWII veterans, 97, so the man is living national treasure.
Palmer is a local legend at veterans’ events because in the Pacific campaigns of WWII, he fought under the command of Marine Corps legendary combat leader Lewis “Chesty” Puller, of the five Navy Cross awards. Palmer pulled combat with Puller in mortal combat against the Empire of Japan on the islands of Peileilu and Okinawa. Check the Wikipedia for defining battles of history’s largest conflict.
Tortolano, a small mountain of a man, was honored for his big heart and unstinting efforts on behalf of brother and sister veterans. He drives, he lifts, he moves furniture, delivers groceries. He visits the ill and infirm and welcomes them home from the hospital. Tony, whose Marine Corps service just missed Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s, lives the Marine motto “semper fidelis.”
The best thing about the recognition for Tony’s volunteer work? The representatives for our elected representatives honored him and that is heady stuff. But the best thing was his mother, Theodora Mae Tortolano, attended and saw him honored.
“My mom was there and she was totally surprised,” Tony said. “It was wonderful.”
Once upon a time, there was a Marine who helped every veteran he could. No kidding, Mom, there he was. Once a Marine, always a Marine.