My Father’s Belgian Story, Angela Fazio, Associate

On September 8, 2002, my father passed away. He was 85 years old, but forever young at heart. My father was the finest person I have ever known. The first man I ever fell in love with, and still the best. All the qualities of a true gentleman, a true hero, he embodied. He was a caring, quiet, brave, strong, selfless, and a giving man. He was finely tuned, just like the violin he played in his youth. He stood tall and straight and always looked so distinguished and handsome and well-dressed. Growing up, my girlfriends had ‘secret’ crushes on him. My dad taught a daughter how a real gentleman treats a lady. He was a man of faith, and a faithful husband and father. He was talented and a lover of the fine arts. I know I get all of that from him. I am grateful. His smile was beautiful, and had a light of its own – everyone always said that. It was a smile that radiated goodness. He was a successful businessman, treating people fairly and kindly, a success, even though he never really learned the art of the deal. He didn’t care. He could never say no to a request, and sometimes people knowing that, could take advantage. But that was okay because he knew it, and chose to help anyway. Maybe he died on that Sunday because, oh maybe, his wonderful heart just wanted to rest now. Maybe his mission had been completed. He had fought heart disease so valiantly and for so long, much like the way he lived – quietly, strongly, never ever complaining, not giving in but with an inner understanding, and yes, even a kind of acceptance. I know he still wanted life, but it was not to be. And our family misses him beyond any reality we know. Our hearts weep.

Leonard J. Fazio, 1st Infantry Division
Leonard J. Fazio, 1st Infantry Division

This story, his Belgian story, is to honor him. My dad was a disabled World War II Veteran, 1st Infantry Division, PFC., Anti-Tank, fought in D-Day, Northern France, Battle of the Bulge, Rhineland, recipient of the Purple Heart, EAME Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Good Conduct Medal.

For all of his life since the Battle of the Bulge, my father had a deep love and respect for the Belgian people. For a couple of months he was with the Meyntjens Family, a relationship that ended up lasting a lifetime and touching many lives. On the outskirts of Antwerp stood three small houses next to one of the bridges by the strategically crucial locks. The Meyntjens lived in one of those houses. There were Mom & Pop, their three daughters, Angeline, Alida, Maria, and little eleven-year-old, Frans. Their oldest child, Peter, in his early twenties, had been taken away by the Nazis. My father had been gravely injured in France, and after being released from a hospital in England, was sent to Antwerp to recuperate. He was to stay for a couple of months guarding those Antwerp locks. He was stationed near the bridge. My father’s leg injury did heal, but he sustained permanent hearing loss that continued to deteriorate to over 90%. When he came home, and for the rest of his life, he wore a hearing aid. It was a large box positioned in a halter that went around his shoulders and his back, and hung in the middle of his chest. The ear mold was connected to a tube which connected to a wire to the hearing aid box. He also relied a lot on lip reading. This old-fashioned hearing aid, and the only model that could even help my dad at all, was his connection to a hearing world. Not ever, ever was there a word of complaint, not ever was there self-pity. I think a lot of men were like that from that Generation. Ordinary people called upon to be extraordinary. The men who really saw the hardest action of the War seemed to remain the quietest about it. No bragging.

During this three month time, my father bonded forever with his Belgian family. The Nazis were all around, always looking for Americans, and so they would regularly have to hide. Mom & Pop (that is what my dad always called them) hid my father in different spaces in their little house, at risk to their own lives. And always around him, staying close, protecting him just the way a little boy would want to do, was Frans – always Frans. The Nazis didn’t give up – bayonets poised, shouting in German, threatening the Belgians, always searching – but they did not find those Americans guarding that bridge. The Meyntjens shared their home, their food, their lives with my father. He was their tall, quiet American. How little Frans loved and clung to him! He wanted to always stay with him; I guess he so missed his big brother. The family didn’t speak English, and my father of course didn’t speak Flemish, but it did not seem to matter. Their understanding of each other was somehow not just about language. It was about the need for family, to feel cared for, to have a little of the gentleness and love left behind at home in America. Frans did learn to say, ‘my brother’, in English to my father. That was enough. Not ever did this family think of themselves. Perhaps Mom and Pop felt that if they couldn’t help their son, they would help another mother’s son. And so my dad became like theirs. How brave they were! No matter what their fear of the Nazis, it never stopped them from watching out for ‘their American’. When my dad did get some free time, he stayed at home with them. He could have, but chose not to go to the local night spots.

So the weeks of guarding the locks and of his own recuperation passed. It had been about three months, and the time had come to go back to the frontlines. My father always told me that that day of leaving his Belgian family was one of the hardest. As the trucks pulled away and my father was looking out from the back of one of them, they began running after him crying aloud and screaming his name over and over. Little Frans kept calling for, ‘my brother, my brother!’. They were losing him. The War went on, and my father was back on the frontlines. When he did get a furlough, he visited. And then the War was finally over. My dad went home to my mother. His ship, the USS Washington, braved a huge and ferocious storm at sea to be one of the first ones home. Its captain did not turn back when other ships decided they would. He said these men had seen the fiercest fighting, and deserved to go home as fast as the ship could take them. They had earned the most battle stars which meant they had earned their place to be the first ‘batch’ home. Their captain said they’d make it, they’d been thru too much not to, and they did – Christmas Eve. My mother had moved back home with her parents for the duration of the War, and on Christmas Eve 1945, the doorbell rang. There stood my father! My aunt screamed out his name, and my father walked thru the hallway, and there he saw my mother. It was a kiss that had been waiting for years to be delivered. He was safely home. Merry Christmas, everyone! And life went on. I was born in 1948, my sister, Donna Lee, in 1958, and my brother, Leonard, was born in 1963.

My father always wanted to go back to Belgium to the Meyntjens to thank them, to see them again. Thru the years, there were cards, letters, and Christmas gifts. I can still remember my Belgian doll they had sent me one year. The families communicated as best as they could. My dad so loved anything Belgian, that when the New York World’s Fair opened in the early 1960’s, we would go as a family every Sunday, and guess where we would always end up? Yes, at the lovely and authentic-looking Belgian Village, sitting at a table on cobblestone streets, and eating of course, Belgian waffles! My father would sit there with his beautiful smile, sheer nostalgia radiating from his face. Sometimes we’d be there and a Belgian band would begin playing. Then you could see tears glisten in his eyes. He felt Belgium’s essence come to him on those happy Sundays. It’s a wonderful family memory. In ways of the heart, he was still theirs.

Finally in 1973, my dad and mother, and another couple, who were their best friends, did just that. My dad felt he had to be there right then; it turned out to be quite prophetic. Their visit was so wonderful, three days of somehow stepping back in time, and yet so enjoying the moment. When they entered their house, my parents were overcome with what they saw. All around and on their walls were pictures of my father and their son, Peter. Nothing had changed, my father was still a part of them. Peter had actually survived the War and the forced labor in Germany, only to die one night while taking a shortcut home. He was walking on the railroad tracks and was killed instantly by an oncoming train. The War was recently over, Peter was 26 years old and home. What tragedy!

Their three day visit was very happy, but sad too. No one had ever forgotten the tall, quiet, calm, young American soldier. But Mom and Pop were gravely ill. Mom was bedridden, and my father knew they were both dying. The whole Meyntjens Family had gathered, grown-up now, the three daughters and dear Frans. My parents got to meet their spouses, and some of their children. The visit was all it should be. Dad had kept his promise to return someday with his wife, Ann. He had been given that last chance, a gift to see their faces again, sit down at their table, and embrace them for the last good-bye. Within just a few days of my parents leaving Belgium, both Mom and Pop passed away. From time to time after my parents came home, my father would send cards to their home hoping to reach someone and hear from one of Mom and Pop’s children. There might be a card – but only sporadically. Then we never heard from them again. My father sadly thought Belgium was gone for him. We thought so too. And life went on.

But we were wrong. Happily, Belgium was still to be a part of our lives. After about 27 years, in late March 2002, just a few months before my father passed away, a phone call. Imagine! Someone named Luc DeRoeck had been searching thru various internet search sites looking for the phone number of the American he had always heard about. He finally found my father thru a service of The New York Times – some kind of computer search site that traces people. Little did he know then that my sister and brother-in-law both work for the newspaper, and had he just looked under our last name, he would have found us quite easily. So Luc located a number of an office where my father had worked, the lovely lady and friend who took the call from him then called my mother, who then called me, and I had the number of a Belgian named, Luc DeRoeck, who was looking for the American soldier named Leo or Leonard. I called. Luc spoke perfect English

Source: http://www.thirteen.org/newyorkwarstories/story.php?id=319