My Dad, He Was An American Hero
My Dad, he was seventeen when he signed up,
My grandfather signed the papers for him to join,
My Dad became an infantryman,
He was in the 1st Cavalry, 7th regiment,
Custer’s outfit, the Go For Broke,
My Dad he was sent to Korea in September of 1950,
He sailed past that Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco,
He was in battle during the Korean War,
In Puson and in Taegu,
He was wounded outside of Taegu,
He rolled down a hill, after he was wounded,
He was in an Army Hospital in Japan,
And he was awarded the Purple Heart,
Only he and another fellow were the only ones
In their unit to survive that battle,
He was the first soldier from Ansonia, CT
To be wounded in Korea,
He always talked about the Korean War,
His memories of it were vivid,
The war was always with him,
Especially in his later years,
It was all he talked about,
In the summer of 1995, the Korean War Memorial
Was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
We went to see that Memorial,
19 statues in formation just the way
The soldiers walked in the battlefields of Korea,
One carrying the radio,
All of them wearing the pontoons,
Carrying their full-field packs, and their guns, and their rations,
My Dad was there like so many others of his generation,
My Dad, Peter J. Mariotti
An American Hero.
Celine Rose Mariotti
