At the start of WW2, my father was 35 years of age and already working in the garment industry supporting a family. Although he didn't serve in WW2 I am proud of his service to our Country in helping with the War effort by quitting his job and becomming a welder building LST's.
I was born into a average American family after the war and raised in Shrewsbury N.J. along with my 3 brothers, Tom, Rich, and Jerry. . Shrewsbury, N.J. is a little historical town that has many artifacts dating back to the Revolutionary War. The church on Sycamore Ave. , less than a mile from our home, was built during that time and is held together with wooden pegs. The Church bell in its bell tower has musket ball markings in it and the cemetery surrounding it has headstones dating back to that period. Halloween was especially fun wandering thru that cemetery in anticipation of seeing a GHOST. It was in this surrounding that I grew up and developed a love of old towns, battlefields and history. Although I was not the best history student in school, I grew to love history and how it changed our lives today. My lifelong friend Frank Pingitore and I just recently came to a realization that we both wished we were born into a different era. The era of the "greatest generation". The generation of my parents and his parents. To that end and in my old age I have found more often than not, watching the history channel every chance I got. WW2, the events and the sacrafices made by the "greatest generation" always plunged me deep into thought. One battle in particular that always caught my attention was the Ardennes offensive, "The Battle Of The Bulge". That "one" battle, if lost, could have changed the world as we know it today.
Burt Lopresti
I was born into a average American family after the war and raised in Shrewsbury N.J. along with my 3 brothers, Tom, Rich, and Jerry. . Shrewsbury, N.J. is a little historical town that has many artifacts dating back to the Revolutionary War. The church on Sycamore Ave. , less than a mile from our home, was built during that time and is held together with wooden pegs. The Church bell in its bell tower has musket ball markings in it and the cemetery surrounding it has headstones dating back to that period. Halloween was especially fun wandering thru that cemetery in anticipation of seeing a GHOST. It was in this surrounding that I grew up and developed a love of old towns, battlefields and history. Although I was not the best history student in school, I grew to love history and how it changed our lives today. My lifelong friend Frank Pingitore and I just recently came to a realization that we both wished we were born into a different era. The era of the "greatest generation". The generation of my parents and his parents. To that end and in my old age I have found more often than not, watching the history channel every chance I got. WW2, the events and the sacrafices made by the "greatest generation" always plunged me deep into thought. One battle in particular that always caught my attention was the Ardennes offensive, "The Battle Of The Bulge". That "one" battle, if lost, could have changed the world as we know it today.
Burt Lopresti
