I got lucky on D-Day.

Elmer Nacca was a second-generation Italian immigrant. Like so many young men of the WWII era, he rushed off, at the age of 22, to enlist in the U.S. Army eager to save the world from Nazis, Fascists, and Communists. His only request was that he not be sent to Italy, where he might have to fight family relatives. It was a request that the Army was happy to accommodate. Welcome to France, Elmer. Welcome to Normandy.

My father rarely spoke about that day. His twisted right arm and the cavity in his left side were my childhood visuals concerning D-Day. Of course, a little kid doesn’t see the badges of heroism, courage, and trauma, or think much about how that arm got mangled. He just sees his dad. The man who took him down to Charlotte beach on summer days, who taught him to ride a bicycle, and who coached him through his times tables. Early on, I noticed that my father had a most unusual way of holding a pencil. A uniquely personal result of a historic military event that I would later see........

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