Press and Sun-Bulletin from Binghamton, New York • 6

6A Press Sun-Bulletin Monday, May 31,2004 FROM THE COVER Brother And Joseph began to understand why he'd never heard from Daniel's commander he was probably dead, too. The battle had its point, however. The 30th was a target of a German assault meant to destroy the Allies' break out of the hedgerows of Normandy. Bradley didn't reinforce the 30th Division, letting it act as bait to draw-in more German units. Then he moved divisions around the battle to cut off hundreds of thousands of German troops.

A small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless to know what a brother's death accomplished. "It's a sad time in our lives," Joseph said. Sixty years haven't dulled the pain of the Mastronardi brothers' sacrifice, although time has given them the wisdom to cope with it. They talk about the good times and joke their way out of the bad. "But on Memorial Day, or Veterans Day, you think about him," George said.

And that gets them to thinking about all the young men and women who have died or risk death to protect America. They trade friendly jabs over the politics behind the latest war in the Persian Gulf one brother is a Republican, the other a Democrat but neither is happy with the reality of the fight. "At least they knew who they were fighting in World War II," George said. Their discussion on a sunny spring day turns to memorials. Maybe Joseph will go to Washington, D.C., to see the new World War II memorial.

And both ask when the All-. Wars Memorial at the Broome County Vet--t erans Memorial Arena will be completed; Daniel's name will be one of the 1,250 or more that will be on it. "If they do get that memorial dedicated," George said, "I'd like to be there." i But a memorial isn't Daniel. e-moil: tmcodompressconnects.com In mid-1944, it landed in Normandy, a few days after D-Day. Joseph wasn't far behind, landing on July 4.

Gino, the second-eldest brother, was in the Navy, and George was still a teenager in Binghamton. The telegram came in early August. George was at his after-school job. "I was working at Fowler's in the men's department when someone came in and said, 'Your brother was killed in an George said. He thought it was Gino, because Daniel and Joseph were both in combat.

He went home to find his mother a wreck, and the telegram saying Daniel was killed in action. No explanation, no detail. "She was really shook up," Joseph said. George was more stunned than grief-stricken. "It didn't sink in," he said.

"I really didn't know him." Joseph was the last to find out, from a letter his mother wrote. "I wrote to the company commander, but I never heard back," he said. He would wait 50 years before learning how Daniel died. Daniel came home in 1947. His grave in France had been meticulously maintained by a villager near Mortain, where Daniel was killed, and Joseph met her after the war.

She corresponded with Daniel's mother, Virginia, for more than 30 Virginia wanted her boy home; so the family had Daniel's body exhumed and shipped to Binghamton. "We had an honor guard, and a proces-. sion down Chenango Street," George said. It was just after Joseph had left the Army and just before George went in. Virginia Mastronardi visited the grave at i CalvaryCemetery in Johnson City every week for the rest of her life and had a Mass celebrated for Daniel every year on the anniversary of his death.

George and Joseph would sometimes run into Daniel's friends over the years, and they'd chat. "Those guys always had some story to tell," Joseph said, about Daniel's music or his athletic ability or just how good a guy he was. Once, one of them came into George's bakery, since closed. "There were tears in his eyes, and he showed me a photo of Dan he'd been carrying it for 50 years," George said. And every month, Virginia and Louis Mastronardi would get a check for $75.

It was the proceeds of Daniel's $10,000 life insurance policy. "Dan always said he'd take care of the family," George said. The mystery behind Daniel's death plagued Joseph for decades, until about 1993, when he read A Soldier's Story, the autobiography of General of the Army Omar Bradley. It gave some details about the 30th Division's role in the battle of Mortain in August 1944. A magazine he picked up at a barber shop gave him more.

Daniel's unit. Company A of the 1 19th Infantry Regiment, was on a hill outside Mortain, in the southern part of Normandy. It was cut off, surrounded and low on supplies by Aug. 7, 1944. The battle was largely a matter of lobbing artillery shells at each other, but the attacks and counterattacks were fierce sometimes so close that commanders would call for artillery fire on their own positions, risking killing their own troops to beat the Germans back.

vKN "The Germans threw everything they had at Company Joseph said. Sometime that day, Daniel died. Joseph isn't sure exactly how, buttthe German 88-millimeter gun fired shells faster than the speed of There's no dodging them, because they explode before you ever know they're coming. CONTINUED FROM 1 A Daniel Mastronardi promised his mother in 1939 that he would always take care of his family. He had dropped out of high school to take a piece-work job, and 11-year-old George would spend evenings counting all of Daniel's coupons.

Each coupon meant a bit more cash $12. maybe $15 a week. Piece work and Endicott Johnson were about the only opportunities open to a high school dropout in 1939, and Daniel wasn't thrilled with either. He saw the Army as a way to gel out and get a chance at life. ()r maybe just to get some room.

Joseph said: Four boys, four girls, two bedrooms and one bathroom. Daniel, the eldest, was barely 20. Baby Bernice was still in diapers. The brothers joke today about exactly how far their mother could stretch one chicken. ate a lot of greens," Joseph said.

Daniel was a talented piano player who would make a bit of extra cash playing in a band. It went to his mother. And he was pretty good on the baseball field, too. "I don't remember him working," George said. But almost 10 years separated them, and he was too little to even be the annoying kid brother when Daniel was a teen.

"I remember seeing him in a pool room Louis and Virginia Mastronardi were none too pleased when their eldest son announced he was enlisting. "I don't think my father appreciated it," said Joseph, who was then 14. "Daniel was contributing to the household. And if he was in the Army, that would end." After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Mastronardis were convinced Daniel would head to the South Pacific. His unit, the 30th Division, was on the West Coast.

But then it turned around and headed to Europe. Among the Tier's Fallen More than 1 ,250 Broome County residents have died in wars since the Mexican-American War (1846 to 1848). Hundreds more from surrounding counties and during peacetime add to the list. Here are some of them. World War II Victor Cerasaro Master Sgt.

Victor Cerasaro of Endicott volun-; teered to replace a junior noncom'-" missioned officer on April 14, 1945, in a patrol in Metz, Germany. The 5 patrol walked into an ambush, and Cerasaro died just 24 days before Germany surrendered. He left vt behind his parents and five including Cosmo and Anthony. Chester Snyder Staff Sgt. Chester Snyder of Binghamton manned a machine gun aboard a B-1 7 bomber on Dec.

1 1 943, when it was shot down over Jabbeke, Belgium. One man, the pilot, escaped and four others were captured. But five, including Snyder, died in the attack or when the plane crashed. He left behind his mother, three brothers and a sister, Beverly Wood of Chenango, a wife and four children. Carl Pierson First Lt.

Carl Pierson of Greene crawled into the cockpit of his A-36 ground attack plane and took off for a crucial day of bombing near Rome on June 1 1944. He never returned home, although later Army reports would credit the light and medium bombers with a pivotal role in breaking the German lines defending Rome. i Korea Henry S. Reid Pvt. Henry Reid, 19, of Johnson City, left his position near Masan, Korea, twice on Aug.

2, 1 950, while under attack to repair communications lines. He was killed two days later, shortly after writing his mother: "Don't worry at all. Everything is going to be all right." He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star. He left behind his mother and a brother, Soldier joined the Army anyway, he said, after three years of college taught him engineering was not for At least, not yet. 4 His immediate future includes marrying his fiancee, Tronovitch of Chenango' Forks, while home on a leave before returning to duty, this time in Italy.

His military term extends to February '2007. And then? His parents are eager to know, but reluctant to ask. i "If they ask our opinion, we give it," said his mother, Nancy, about her two boys, Jeff and his older brother, Jason. "We brought them up to make their own decisions. I guess I can't say enough about letting them be independent, but at the same time letting them know you are there for them." And if Jeff did ask for her opinion about where to settle his fam- ily? "They'don'if have to be fight here," she said.

"But somewhere close." Jeff said his experience with the military taught him many things. One is an undying appreciation for the sacrifice of previous generations of soldiers who fought for the country. He thinks of them "all the time," he said. He believes that, despite the hardships of serving in Iraq, the tours of duty are generally easier than those in World War II, Vietnam, or the wars fought by previous generations. Here's another thing he gained from know what I want for my family.

I never want them to live like that." His future is likely to include a return to Greene and its embodiment of freedom and security that previous generations fought for. And some day, he expects, he will be teaching his own children the value of independence. e-moil: of 52 bombing missions over when he was with the U.S.. Air Force in World War II. Merrill, 28, has always been enthusiastic about fighting for his country, said his mother, Ruth, Alvarez, of Vestal.

That enthusiasm successfully carried him through elite training with the U.S. Army, where he served a term as a paratrooper, and now with the National Guard. He did everything he could, against his mother's wishes, to make sure he would be selected to go to Iraq, where he is now serving until April. Alvarez honors her son's patriotism. But she fears it will kill him.

"Yeah, he's doing what he's always wanted to do. But the risk of being over there that's what I'm thinking about," she said. It is a relentless thought. Every time she tunes in the news or scans the headlines, a knot forms in her stomach. Too often these days.dead U.S.

soldiers in Iraq are. a regular part of the story. "He's my only one she said. It's a thought that extends across generations of parents waiting for their children to return from war. Nancy Amell resists that feeling.

But it's hard. kept telling myself, 'He's 23 yearsold.He'sa man. If that's what he wants to do, I'm not going to be negative," she jaid. Independence For Jeff Amell, the decision to join the military ran deeper than war on terror. He would have Elementary School, where schoolchildren hondred other soldiers and war veterans with a special ceremony.

5 He thanked the pupils for letters they wroteliim while he was in the Middle East, and the boost those letters gave him. Jeff's parents and fiancee and friends were there, grateful he had returned home alive and whole, Spanning generations If 83-year-old Tom Nixon were making the choices for his grandson, Jeff would; have finished college. i "But there was more on his mind," Nixon said. Nixon recalled his own eagerness to enlist in the military after he graduated from high school. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, recruiting stations were backed up in Binghamton and Syracuse, so he traveled to Albany, where he enlisted with the U.S.

Coast Guard. served from 1942 to 1945 in 3hfc Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on ships that transported American troops and supplies. Nixon was swept up in a tide of patriotism that carried many to war, including six of his 10 siblings: "Pearl Harbor brought things to a head," he said. Some 60 years later, after Sept. 1 1, Joe Merrill, of Deposit, followed the same calling', When Merrill was a boy, he used to listen to the stories of his grand' father, Simon Eggleston, a veteran CONTINUED FROM 1A Jeff's decision would land him amid the chaos and brutality of northern Iraq, where he patrolled streets as part of the Army's 173rd Southern European Task Force, trying to restore order.

Jeff, now 23, isn't given to talking much about himself or his expe-' riences in Iraq. "I'm a simple" infantryman," he said. "It's my job. Somebody has to do it." To be sure, it was far different from any experience he would get at the University of Buffalo, or in Greene, where he grew up. He saw cataclysmic destitution and desperation.

He saw inequality and racism and homicide. He saw unspeakable squalor and incomprehensible wealth. Through the remnants of greed and tyranny, he also saw selfless acts of courage and compassion under extraordinary conditions. The experience was fundarnen-tally different from what he could have learned seeing it on television or reading about it in the newspaper. "It's a lot easier to watch the news and think what you want to think.

But being over there, it's different," he said. "You're dealing with people." Some moments are just too difficult to talk about, he said. There was no sign of those moments on a recent visit to Greene ALWAYs'oPEN MONDAY THRU Protect Your Car Before It's Too Late UNDERRATING New Used Cars Complete Rust Protection Reduces Road Noise By 60 Slightly More For Pickups Vans WINDOW TINT 4 Sided Window Light, Medium Dark Tints Back Window Price Varies SUNROOFS Removable Glass Memorial To learn more Professionally Installed Roof "SENIOR CITIZEN DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE. OFFERS EXPIRE 6-7-04. lb To contribute to the All Wars Memorial, send checks payable to All Wars Memorial, Community Foundation for South Central New York, 70 Front Binghamton, N.Y.

13905. For more information on the All Wars Memorial: www.allwarsmemorial.com or www.bclibrary.infoVeterans1 Rotary and the Ahearn Foundation, have added to the money pool, and veterans groups are doing what they can. That's how Patrick Ulmen got involved. He's an officer with American Legion Post 89 in Vestal and the Eastern regional director of U.S. Submarine Veterans.

"Why don't we see what's going on?" Ulmen asked another Legionnaire. "Next thing I know, I'm involved." The organization benefited from a concert last fall. "I envision us doing more of that," Alpaugh said. e-moil: tmcodompressconnects.com Vietnam Lawrence Brown Marine Pvt. Lawrence Brown of Binghamton had accompanied his unit to the hills of Chu Lai in November 1965, carrying a flame-thrower fuel tank.

The unit was ambushed, and either the tank was pierced and exploded or Brown's partner spun when he was shot and sprayed Brown with burning fuel. He died Dec. 3, 1965, leaving behind his parents, George and Dora, and siblings Lewis, Leslie, Lynn, Lionel and Lydia. Peacetime Gregory J. Fusco Electrician's Mate 2nd Class Gregory J.

Fusco of Endicott was aboard the nuclear submarine USS Thresher on April 10, 1963, when for reasons never discovered, the Thresher mn below its 1 crush depth, Imploded and scattered pieces below 8,400 feet of Atlantic Ocean. Fusco left behind his mother, Lena; brother, Libbra; a wife; and three children. Henry VanWinkle Marine Lt. Col. Henry VanWinkle, 40, of Kirkwood, died Feb.

6, 1998, when the FA-1 8 fighter jet he was flying collided with another jet during a refueling operation on a mission to patrol Iraq's southern no-fly zone. He was survived by his wife, Cheryl; two sons, Griffen and Grant; his mother, Joan; and brothers Leon, George and Bradley. Operation Desert Storm Thomas E. Walrath Spc. Thomas Walrath of Sanitaria Springs died March 18, 1991, when his vehicle collided with a fuel-oil tanker during Operation Desert Storm.

He left behind a wife, Amy; three sons; and his parents, Robert and Carrie Walrath of Sanitaria Springs. Operation Iraqi Freedom Isaac Nieves Spc. Isaac Nieves was patrolling Bani Saad, about 25 miles north of Iraq, on April 8 when his unit came under fire from small arms and a homemade explosive. Nieves, 20, manned the machine gun on top of a Humvee and died almost immediately from a wound to the head. He leaves behind a wife, Amy; his parents, Gilbert and Maria Nieves of Unadilla; and nine broth- ers and sisters.

On For a list of Broome County residents who died in combat, go to: www.pressconnects.com specialwardead UprpjjTC 1 1 i CaU 738.6I foi mora information. CONTINUED FROM 1 A The plan is to inscribe the names of 1,250 or more Broome County soldiers killed in war on a monument tobe erected at the northwest corner of the arena. The names compiled by Broome County Historian Gerald Smith date back to the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, the first war in which Broome County was incorporated. Three names are from the Mexican-American War, 462 from the Civil War, five from the Spanish-American War, 142 from World War 1, 543 from World War II, 23 from Korea, 66 from Vietnam, and one each from Beirut and Operation Desert Storm. The recognition is important, at least to Robert Walrath, whose son Thomasdied in Desert Storm.

He's a disabled veteran himself. "A woman came up to me a little while ago. She said, 'Thanks for That brought tears to my eyes," Walrath Foundations and community groups, including the Binghamton BEFORE AFTER LOUIES Walk-In Monday, May 31 Memorial Day PCA Eastside 276 Robinson St, Binghamton 9am 5pm PCA Endicott 415 East Main Endicott 9am 5pm Located within the LOURDES' Emergency Room, LOURDES Fast Track is open from Noon to 1 1 TL DntM Products.