We Who Are Alive and Remain (37 page)

Mike went on in the letter to talk briefly about seeing Bob Rader, then some medical tests he himself was going to have. Then Mike ended with those lines that have become so famous now. In the miniseries, Dick Winters quoted him:

Everybody who knew George Luz Sr. loved him. Our dad would do anything for anybody. He was sincere, kind, and caring, a behind-the-scenes man who shunned attention. He did things solely because they were the right things to do, and when he did someone a favor, he expected nothing in return.

Dad was born June 17, 1921, in Fall River, Massachusetts, and grew up in a large family, with six sisters and three brothers. The family soon moved to West Warwick, Rhode Island, a small town built around pockets of ethnic neighborhoods. His parents spoke Portuguese only, and when Dad went to first grade he didn’t speak English yet. He learned quickly.

Dad quit school in the eleventh grade to help support the family. (In the 1970s he went back to school and got his GED.) Soon after high school he joined the army. Dad was a private with Easy Company when they formed in Toccoa. He parachuted into Normandy and Holland and fought in Bastogne and on into Germany. He was known for his sense of humor and ability to do imitations of other people. We think he was a sergeant by the end of the war, though we haven’t been able to verify that. Like many of the men, our dad’s stripes were removed and reinstated several times for doing crazy things. His grave reads: “PFC George Luz.”

When he got out of the service he married our mom, Delvina, the younger sister of one of Dad’s neighborhood friends. Dad was six years older than Mom. They had grown up in the same neighborhood, but because of their age difference had never hung around together as kids. During the war our mother had worked in a factory that made pilots’ flight jackets. Later she worked as a seamstress for high-end clothing companies.

Dad worked a few different jobs out of the service, then landed an apprenticeship in the textile industry as a lace weaver. He completed the apprenticeship and was offered a job in a mill. It wasn’t long until Mom and Dad saved enough to put a down payment on a house. The house cost eleven thousand dollars. Its price became a running joke in the family: later in life, Dad wanted to buy my mother a different car. She said, “I don’t care what it is—as long as it doesn’t cost any more than what we paid for the house.”

Dad was well liked in the neighborhood. He was on the volunteer fire department and president of a Portuguese club called the Holy Ghost Association. Each Labor Day the association held carnivals, banquets, and a big feast. Dad marched proudly in each Labor Day parade in his white tuxedo. His friends all called him Georgie
Luge,
(pronounced like the Olympic sport, which is how the Portuguese said our name). He always had a lot of friends.

Since Dad had nine brothers and sisters and Mom had eleven brothers and sisters, we always had terrific family parties, picnics, and barbecues. Social activities meant getting the family together. Sometimes we got a softball game going at a park, or we went to one of the local beaches. Whenever we gathered there was always a lot of food. We cheered for the New York Giants for football, the Red Sox for baseball, and the Bruins for hockey.

When I (Lana) was about ten we always went out for breakfast on Sunday mornings at a place called Palm’s Drugstore after going to Mass at St. Anthony’s Church. At Palm’s Drugstore we feasted on Ring Dings, Devil Dogs, Twinkies—it was the only time we were allowed to eat junk food for breakfast. After eating we went to the house where my father grew up: my father’s sister lived there then; they called it The Homestead. Cousins and I went to the local theater, where they played Disney movies on Sunday afternoons.

Mom and Dad never argued in front of us. And you could never play one against the other. But they could both be strict. When I (George Jr.) was twelve years old, a friend and I were out having fun at one of the local golf courses riding around on a cart. The cart ran out of gas, and I ended up coming home quite a bit later than expected. The rule was that we had to come home as soon as the streetlights came on. That night, when I came home, Dad let me know I hadn’t made the right choice. He didn’t smash me or anything, he just gave me a verbal tongue-lashing. I was grounded, and
that better not happen again
.

I (Lana) butted heads with my father more often. When I was a teenager I never knew why everyone always said my dad was so great. He was just the guy who told me I couldn’t go out to a particular movie or whatever. I’m so glad I got to grow up out of that and get to know my father when I was an adult. Then I could understand why people loved him so much.

One year, our mother’s sister was having financial difficulties. There were six kids in her family, and it bothered our father to know there wasn’t enough money to buy Christmas presents. So he bought presents for all his nieces and nephews. It couldn’t have been easy for him—he had his own family—but he just said, “There is no way these kids aren’t going to have toys for Christmas.”

Mom and Dad seemed to be able to stretch a buck in a million ways. Growing up, we always had everything we needed. They were able to put money away for their retirement. They traveled to reunions every year. They flew out to see our older brother in California a lot. For their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary they traveled to Portugal for three weeks and took one of Dad’s sisters and me (Lana) with them.

Dad always lived life at full blast. After working in the textile industry, he worked for the State of Rhode Island as a machine mechanic, then for a company called Little Rhodie, a maintenance company, which did preventative maintenance on pumps and motors. When he turned sixty-five he tried retiring, but that lasted a month or two; then he went back to work. He worked twelve more years after that.

Dad was always physically strong. I (George) remember doing a roofing job on our home when Dad was in his fifties. He could still carry a ninety-pound bundle of shingles on each shoulder up a ladder. My brother-in-law Albert was amazed. Forget two bundles—Albert and I could barely carry one. Two months before Dad died I was doing a roofing job on my house with my buddy, Rene. Dad showed up unannounced with his hammer and pouch, worked all day, ate a slice of pizza, then said, “Well, I have to go home, pick up Mom, and get ready for church.” That was Dad.

It’s funny—while we kids were growing up, he was never a huggy-kissy father, but as time went on he really softened. By the time he had grandchildren, it wasn’t unusual to see him crawling down the hallway on his hands and knees after the grandkids.

In the earlier years Dad was never one to hand out praise or congratulate you on a job well done, but he was proud of his family. I (Lana) am not sure he ever told his oldest son, Steve, how proud he was of him, even though I know he was. Many times in later years I heard Dad tell people of Steve’s accomplishments.

Steve has always felt a strong bond with the men of Easy Company. In the early 1970s, after getting out of the air force, Steve and his young family moved to California, where his wife, Sue, was originally from. Steve put himself through college, got a job with the California Highway Patrol, and lived well. He was responsible for locating Floyd Talbert after years of my father and others from E Company trying to locate him. Talbert had dropped out of sight after the war. After Steve located him, he came to the next reunion. Not long after that reunion, Talbert passed away.

Unquestionably, part of what made Dad’s character was the men he served with in Easy Company. In 1992, at the
Band of Brothers
book opening in New Orleans, all the men got a chance to speak. Dad got up and said, “Nothing against my wonderful wife, Del, who I’ve been married to for forty years, but the three years I spent with these men were the best three years of my life.” At the end of saying that, he choked up.

It seemed the men of Easy Company were always part of our family’s life. In the early 1950s, Mom and Dad went to the reunions of the 101st. The gatherings were quite large, so Easy Company started having its own reunions, and Mom and Dad always went.

The reunions were part of our lives as kids as well. I (George Jr.) was nine in 1965 when I went to my first reunion. I didn’t go every year, but I went to several growing up. At that first reunion we drove all the way from Rhode Island to Kentucky, where it was held. My father didn’t stop the whole way—he drove straight through the night. Mom vowed that it was the last time they would ever drive to a reunion. I doubt if I fully appreciated the quality of the men who were there. The reunion was held at a Holiday Inn. There was one other kid my age there. We hung out in the pool the whole time, just having fun. We went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where I got a chance to shoot an automatic weapon in the tripod position, which I thought was pretty cool for a kid to get to do. One of the men, Phil Perugini, and his wife, Josephine, had taken a train from New York to the reunion. My father said, “We’re going that same way back; why don’t you come with us.” So the Peruginis did. We had this brand-new 1965 Chevy Bel Air station wagon. My older brother Steve didn’t come on that trip, so it was Dad and Phil in the front seat with my mom; Mrs. Perugini and Lana sat in the backseat. I was relegated to the back part of the station wagon, with all the luggage. That wasn’t much fun for me. I had a propensity to throw up.

I (Lana) remember going to one reunion, in Nashville. I had just started a job and couldn’t take time off, so Dad left me money for me to take a flight down for the weekend. My father and Bill Guarnere came to pick me up at the airport. I sat between them in the front seat. Bill was driving. The car had a stick shift, and Bill only has one leg, so it was kind of a wild and hairy ride from the airport.

Bill and Dad were always good friends. When Dad died, Bill drove over to Rhode Island from Philadelphia for the funeral. My mother always thought Bill was kind of loud and brash (and he is—he says words like “broad”). Well, Bill came to the door because he was staying at the house and Mom asked, “Is there anything you need to get from the car?”

“Naw,” Bill said. He had his suit over his shoulder. “I got my suit here, an extra pair of underwear in one pocket, and an extra pair of socks in the other. That’s all I need—I’m all set!”

During the wake, Bill went outside and had a cigarette. My daughter was outside then, and Bill showed her how to “field-strip” a cigarette (as if she really needed to know). I guess cigarette butts aren’t biodegradable, so you stub out your burning cigarette, remove the filter and put it in your pocket, tear the paper, scatter the tobacco, then roll up the paper into a tiny ball and throw it away.

Or in Bill’s case, you eat the paper—which he did.

You’ve absolutely gotta love Bill Guarnere.

Right before the industrial accident in 1998 that took Dad’s life, our older brother Steve had come out from California to visit. When Steve left to go home, we all went to the airport to say good-bye; those were the days when you could go all the way to the gate. My brother got on the plane. Normally Dad would have left immediately at that point, but for some reason that day, he stayed. Dad stood there for the longest time, just looking at Steve’s plane. He stayed until the plane took off.

Dad died on a Thursday. It’s a habit of mine (George Jr.) to go to my mom and dad’s house every Wednesday for spaghetti and meatballs. Mom does my laundry. That previous night had been just like every other night. I went to the car, looked back up toward the house, and said, “Good night, Dad.”

He said, “Good night, George.” That was my last memory of him alive.

Our father’s last day was just like every other day. If a person has cancer or something, there’s time to say good-bye, but when a person dies in an accident, it’s life as usual up to that point. At age seventy-seven he was still working part-time, three days a week as a mechanic. When he left that morning after kissing Mom good-bye, he said, “I’ll see you later, Del; we’ll meet at Jess’s at about two-thirty for coffee.” Dad went to work that day with the full understanding that he and Mom would meet again that afternoon.

Later that day I (George Jr.) received a call from Mom saying that Dad had been hurt and was in the hospital. Naturally, hospitals don’t tell you what’s really going on—they don’t want to freak you out when you’re driving over there. So I picked up Mom, tried to be strong for her, and drove to the hospital. At that point we thought it could have been anything.

I (Lana) received a call saying that there had been an accident over at the laundry. My husband came and got me. I prayed all the way over to the hospital.

Dad worked on large industrial dryers. One of the dryers, about seventy-two hundred pounds, had slipped off its supports and had fallen on him. Doctors said he died instantly.

It’s shocking when you lose someone like that. Horrible, really. One of the hardest things I (George Jr.) had to do was call my older brother Steve in California and tell him that Dad was gone. That was so tough.

The next few days felt surreal. You’re kind of there and kind of not. The first night, I (Lana) stayed with my mother, because somebody needed to be there. I remember hearing her cry all night—that’s how it went. The next morning we woke up and there were tons of things to do. George’s wife, Susan, had lost her parents not long before, so she had a handle on what needed to be done and basically ran with it, went to the church, got the readings, songs, and passages lined up.