Churchill

c1 effects, it’s the so-called Greatest Generation. Forged by the Great Depression, the horrors of war and the sacrifices required to defeat the Nazis and Japanese, they’re a group famous for fortitude, grit and resilience.

And yet the pandemic is taking many of its remaining members away.

Nearly all the obits I read mentioned that funeral services would be postponed, limited or eliminated because of the pandemic, meaning most of the veterans did not get the send off they deserved.

So on this Memorial Day weekend of social distancing, without the usual parades and events, I thought I’d quickly tell you a bit about a few of the recently deceased vets, as just a small way to honor the rich lives of a vanishing generation.

The details that follow were taken mostly from each veteran’s obituary.

Joseph Cutro of Kinderhook was a kid from Brooklyn who loved the Dodgers and, anxious to serve, hid his missing left kidney during his Army induction physical. With the 394th Regiment of the 99th Division, his service included fighting at the Battle of the Bulge and crossing the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagon, a triumph that began the Allied occupation of Germany.

Joseph was still a teenager when he helped liberate Nazi death camps and saw the horrors within. The experience haunted him for the rest of his life. He was 94 when he died April 28 from COVID-19.

Joyce Beazley Fisher of Delmar served her native England as an ambulance driver and a nurse during World War II, when she wasn’t calming her neighbors by singing songs with her siblings during German bombing campaigns. Joyce met Paul, an American who would become her husband, when he was serving in England as a captain in the U.S. Army and came with him to the Albany area, where she was an active member of the Normanside Country Club and a championship golfer. She was 95 when she died April 26 with her granddaughters sitting at their Nana’s bedside.

Herbert Henkin enlisted in the Army in 1943 and served in Europe as a member of the 66th Infantry and Signal Corps. On D-day, he aided the invasion by sending false messages intended to confuse the enemy.

After the war, Herbert lived in Albany and worked for the state health and transportation departments, where he was a bridge designer and expert on sign design. He was 96 when he died April 16 at Samaritan Hospital in Troy.

John Zahnleuter of

Schenectady lived in Germany until his family emigrated to Queens when he was five. He returned to Europe with the Army and was shot in the leg in France.

The bullet remained there for 50 years, accompanying John as he raised three children and built a career at the Internal Revenue Service. He was 96 when he died April 18, almost a year after celebrating his 65th wedding anniversary with Eleanor, who died in July.

Eugene Melillo of Albany joined the Marines with his three brothers when he was just 17 and would go on to fight not just in World War II but in the Korean and Vietnam wars — service for which he was awarded a Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Certificate of Commendation.

Every year on Memorial

Day, Eugene would decorate the graves of veterans. He was 96 when he died April 28, his birthday.

I wish I had the space and the time to tell you more about these and the other local vets lost in recent weeks. Their lives seem worthy of books, full of extraordinary details, pains and sorrows, joys and triumphs.

Memorial Day, of course, is designated to honor veterans who died in combat, the soldiers who didn’t return home. The World War II vets dying now are the fortunate ones, really. War, the great folly of humankind, robbed so many others in the generation of a chance to love and live, to marry and have children, to die at a ripe old age.

The war ended 75 years ago. Even before a pandemic that’s accelerating their disappearance, only about 300,000 of its veterans remained.

The sun is setting on a special generation, and it won’t be long before twilight ends.

cchurchill@timesunion.com 518-454-5442 @chris_churchill