Penn Hills father and daughter publish a memoir documenting a“ Forgotten War.”
The Italian Campaign
WWII Veteran Albert DeFazio and his daughter, Valerie DeFazio Vacula.
Penn Hills father and daughter publish a memoir documenting a“ Forgotten War.”
BY JENNIFER BROZAK
One day, when Penn Hills native Valerie DeFazio Vacula was a teenager, she walked in on her father, Albert, as he was cleaning out his bedroom drawers. She saw a medal lying on the bed. She asked,“ Dad, where did you get this medal? Did you win it?”“ Kind of,” he said.
The elder DeFazio explained to his daughter that he had been in a war, and that the medal she was inquiring about was a Purple Heart. She was shocked.
It was at that moment that Vacula learned her father, who is now 91, was a World War II veteran. Decades later, she would learn that he had survived the Italian Campaign, one of the bloodiest conflicts in World War history.
Together with her father, Vacula has authored“ The Italian Campaign: One Soldier’ s Story of a Forgotten War.” The book is based on DeFazio’ s own memoirs, which he handwrote as part of an archival project for Congressman Mike Doyle.
“ At the time, I was in my late 70s. I was retired and had nothing else to do, so I sat down and
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