The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
REFLECTIONS OF WAR, A LIFE LIVED
Willoughby resident and WWII veteran takes a look back
When the attacks on Pearl Harbor occurred, Edward Langa was only a senior in high school.
“All the guys got together from the senior class,” the 96-year-old World War II veteran recalled. “Let’s go down and enlist, and get this damn thing over with.”
Before the war, the 50-year Willoughby resident lived in Euclid. After serving, he married and moved to Willoughby. The war veteran will turn 97 in April.
“I feel pretty good,” Langa said with a laugh.
Before enlisting into the United States Army, Langa’s teacher in high school recommended that he should wait until he graduated.
“Cooler heads prevailed. She said there will be plenty of war left over,” he said with a laugh. He graduated in May and had just turned 18 when he went into the service.
“I was one of seven kids. The transition really wasn’t bad at all from civilian to military life because I was so active in sports, Boy Scouts,” Langa said. “We were (Great Depression) kids. We weren’t used to a lot of luxuries, so it wasn’t that bad.”
Langa still recalls the first night he was issued his uniform.
“I was staring at the ceiling and I said ‘this is the first
The transition really wasn’t bad at all from civilian to military life because I was so active in sports, Boy Scouts.” — Edward Langa
“Boots filled with water, and loaded down with a helmet, a rifle, a dispatch case, field jacket. There’s only one way you swim and that was straight down.” — Edward Langa
time in my life I have absolutely no control over what I’m going to do or when I’m going to do it,” he recalled. “That was a little sobering, but it only lasted about 20 minutes.”
After coming out of the Great Depression, everyone felt a need to serve for their country, Langa said. As the war progressed, he was still 20 years old.
“There were 104 in my graduating class — 54 of them were girls and 50 were guys,” he said. “Out of the 50 guys, three of them were physically handicapped and couldn’t go into the service.”
Langa said when Veterans Day rolls around it brings back feelings of respect for the guys he served with who did not come out unscathed and or who didn’t survive.
He still recalls some of the guys, who died during the war, from his graduating class.
“There was this one guy — he was exceptionally good looking. We always thought he was going to end up in the movies,” Langa said. “He joined the Marines, took a grenade in the face.
“He was discharged and was all lumpy — just like the Hunchback of Notre Dame walking the streets with people staring at him. He couldn’t get a job. He committed suicide.”
Langa also reflects on the time when the boat he was sailing in developed a leak.
“We went down into the river. It was just two of us — the commander and myself. That water was so cold,” Langa reflected.
“Boots filled with water, and loaded down with a helmet, a rifle, a dispatch case, field jacket. There’s only one way you swim and that was straight down.”
Another boat happened to be there and Langa was thrown a line.
“All this time in the river, I’m thinking my mother would be disappointed if she found out I went all the way over here to get drowned,” he said with a laugh.
The guy who saved Langa from the river ended up being a part of his platoon.
“He had a beautiful, baritone voice and he liked to sing,” he recalled. “When we got back home, he sang at our wedding.”
After the war and all the military personnel returned home, the competition for any type of job was high, Langa said.
He finally got a job as an apprentice draftsman, which paid less than what he was making in the army, he said.
“I had a child to support, living quarters to try to find. I had no automobile and we had no phone of course,” Langa said. “My wife was a gem — a beautiful, beautiful person. She died when we were married 70 and a half years.”
Langa’s time is short, he said, but he is not sorry for serving for his country.
“I think ever ybody should serve,” he said. “It keeps your head on your shoulders.”