When he was told he had only weeks to live, his response was telling. He was calm and at peace. At 82, he told his children, he had lived much longer than he expected.
He had fought in World War II, after all — the “big one” as he called it. He had survived four amphibious invasions. He described the terror he felt wading onto the beaches of Sicily as gunners tried to mow him down.
While driving a munitions truck along the sand one day, a German fighter pilot targeted him. He jumped behind his .50-caliber machine gun and began firing at the plane. He hit it — he saw its windshield shatter — but the pilot managed to release his payload.
The bomb was headed right at him. When it detonated, he knew it would ignite the munitions he was hauling. The explosion would be spectacular.
But he didn’t panic — didn’t yell or scream. He thought only of his mother — the agony she would experience when she learned her son had died in battle.
But the bomb was a dud. Recounting the story years later, he laughed at how it soaked him when it hit the surf. He laughed at how he’d survived his first scrape with death.
He survived three other invasions in Europe. In one, he took shrapnel to the back of his knee. He plucked out the hot metal and kept moving.
On the way to another, a truck mount broke. The cannon the truck had been towing thrust backward, pinning his knee against a hillside, crushing it. That injury would nag him for the rest of his life, but on that day he continued to move along.
At one point during the war, he was put in charge of a prison camp. Escape attempts were common, and in the process, German POWs would routinely slit the throats of their captors.
But he had treated his prisoners with dignity — even offering them cigarettes.
While off-duty and sleeping one night, a German escaped. The prisoner chose to treat him with dignity, too, sparing his life.
After cheating death during the war, he did what many GIs did. He dove headfirst into life.
In Pittsburgh, he resumed work as a carpenter, while studying engineering at night. He married, bought a home, started a family. His legacy includes 10 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
In time, he rose through the ranks in his union, the Carpenters District Council of Western Pennsylvania. He became its leader, improving working conditions and pay. He established pension funds. He fought for the dignity of thousands of tradesmen.
He won the respect of many in the process. He befriended business leaders, congressmen and senators. He judged men by their actions. He was a man of faith, supported charities and served on many non-profit boards.
Like so many World War II veterans, he never spoke much about his remarkable wartime experiences and accomplishments. It wasn’t until he died in 2007 that they began to fully emerge.
His name was Robert P. Argentine. Like so many of the men and women who risked their lives for their country in time of war, he left the world a much better place than he’d found it.
His example inspires us still and he is one of the millions of great Americans we should remember and celebrate on Veterans Day and beyond every year.
Tom Purcell’s column is distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.