Died three years ago at age 91. He was in England staging for D-day. His sister in New Jersey sent him a letter and said his cousin was an Italian prisoner of war working on a nearby farm in England. My dad went to the farm, talked to the Sergeant in charge, took his cousin out for the night and brought him back in the morning.
They exchanged letters the rest of their lives. We met the cousin in Sicily in 2002. He told us to speak English because he remembered English. Not too common in a small Sicilian city.
My dad was D-Day plus 6. Went through dance and into Berlin. After the war they sat on the beach in Cannes waiting for the merchant marines to settle their strike and take theme. Dad could not get leave to visit Sicily. Sat on the beach for 90 days.
If you saw Andy’s last session on 60 minutes, you saw the real Andy Rooney, a crotchety nasty angry old man, bitter and unsocial.