When I think of souvenirs of World War II, I think of my father, who served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. He participated in the allied invasion of North Africa and Salerno, Italy. In high school, I made a report on him and his army in history class. I got an a in my report. For the rest of the year, my friends will make fun of me and say "Salerno" derisively when they see me. Maybe he did it because his father didn't have such a story to tell. But I have always been interested in what my father did during the war. Not so much pride as interest.

My father used to say that because he knew something, he had a craft, and he was good at architecture, so he was not put on the front line. He always encouraged me to get an education, so that if I was called up to fight, I wouldn't be at the front. His troops built runways and residential areas for the air force. As the allies advanced, they needed airstrips and buildings.

My father learned Italian and finally married an Italian girl. He brought her back, and they had a family with three children. He divorced her, claiming that she was unfaithful. How should I know? I only began to understand my father and his history after his first marriage and family. So my father will tell me the story of him and his partner in the death ward of the military hospital. That night, he and his partner decided to go out and indulge in wine for the last time.

He testified that the next day, he and his partner were declared in good health and could be discharged from the hospital and returned to the army. He told how his troops met a town, where there was a warehouse, and the wine in it was put in a barrel the size of a house. They used bamboo or something like that as a straw, and in the morning, they lowered the wine in the barrel by one foot.

He told me that when he was in North Africa, his troops were awakened from bed at two in the morning and had to flee because Rommel, the desert fox, and his German tank division were approaching them. The deadly cold air in the desert is the reason why my father passed death again, because he almost really caught a cold and died.

He told how a group of sympathizers of the Italian allied forces took refuge in a liberated town. My father's army had a group of German prisoners of war, who stayed with the sympathizers and guarded them until the allied forces behind came to take over these prisoners of war. My father's army gave food to Italians and prisoners until the next army arrived. My father later found out that sympathizers shot the Germans and distributed food to the townspeople.

On the troop ship back, my father had a bag of German Luger pistols bought from another soldier. My father heard a rumor that an inspection was under way and anyone caught carrying war souvenirs would face disciplinary action. So one night, my father threw a bag of German weapons into the sea.

My father didn't bring any World War II souvenirs home. But since I met him in his second marriage, his story has been with me.