In 1943, my father had something a lot of young men probably wished they had: a legitimate reason to stay out of World War II. My dad, Gaetano “Guy” Giunta, was a skilled machinist at B. F. Sturtevant in Massachusetts, and his work was considered essential to the war effort. Because of that, he’d been given deferment after deferment. Then his supervisor came to him with another six-month deferment, and my father said no. “No! My friends, my buddies are there fighting. I’m going too.” That one sentence tells you a lot about who my father was.
He’d come to America from Calabria, Italy, when he was 14. Less than two years later, his father died, and before he was 16 he was already helping support his mother and brothers. He’d learned responsibility early, probably earlier than any kid should have to. So when his friends were overseas fighting, he just couldn’t see himself staying home while they were carrying the burden.
He entered the Army and became a gun crewman with Battery C, 903rd Field Artillery Battalion, 78th Infantry Division, the “Lightning” Division. He fought through the Rhineland, the Battle of the Bulge, the advance into Germany and Remagen. He went through things most of us can’t imagine, and somehow he survived and came home.
That’s the part I didn’t fully understand until much later in my own life. As a kid, I just knew my father as Dad. He was tough, demanding and disciplined. He liked the house hot. Sudden noises bothered him. He believed in respect, hard work, doing the right thing and taking care of your family. Back then, I didn’t connect much of that to the war. I do now.
I eventually wrote "Lightning in His Blood: A Son’s Journey Through War, Sacrifice, and the Life of a 78th Infantry Division Soldier" because I wanted to better understand the man behind the stories I’d heard growing up. I thought I was writing about my father’s war, but what I really ended up doing was getting to know my father all over again.
Sometimes you don’t fully understand your father until you’re older, and by then there are questions you wish you’d asked while you still had the chance. That’s why I wanted to preserve his story.
