Steven Vance

U.S. History Per. 3

Corona

Veteran’s Day Essay: Sam Pecchia

Sam Pecchia was born and raised in Minnesota he had five brothers and three sisters and graduated from high school in 1939. Soon after graduation he attended junior college from 1939 – 1941. World War II had already began and at that time if you had 85% of your college credits done you could enlist in the service.

Mr. Pecchia volunteered for the service. He tried to join the Marines but he didn’t pass the eye test, so he decided to " walk across the street and join the Army." He wanted to help the country in some way and many young people, like Mr. Pecchia responded to, "help with the situation."

His training began at Fort Snelling and soon moved to Camp Swift in Austin, Texas. He then moved on to Fort Sam Houston in Texas and then traveled to Louisiana Maneuvers Infantry Training. In Camp Cox Comb is where he and many others lived in tents in the desert in California. In this camp the soldiers in training used tanks and Sam came into contact with his soon to be commander, General George Patton. During this training soldiers would fill bags with flour and if a bag hit them you were considered dead.

Pecchia, along with many other soldiers, took trains back and forth across the country. Sam remembers going from California to Washington to Canada across to Pennsylvania. "Rumors spread like wildflowers," and for about three months Sam thought he was going to Africa. Nobody told the soldiers where they were going, so they would look at license plates to see what state they were in. When the started seeing Canadian plates they were lost. He finally reached Boston where he boarded a ship to England.

When Sam arrived in England the English welcomed the U.S. with open arms. To Sam the French as a whole weren’t clean people and, "weren’t very good fighters." He claims the people in Holland "were the cleanest people in the world." As for Belgium he say they were like the French. But what came as a shock to Sam was going to Germany. It was like the United States. Even though the U.S. soldiers weren’t allowed to talk to anyone, Sam realized about 35% of Germans could speak English. While Sam was in England, he was stationed in Winchester, helping build supplies.

During the war Sam saw action. One part in particular that Sam doesn’t like to talk about was when he was in Omaha Beach during the Normandy Invasion where his best friend was killed. After the invasion there was many fierce battles with the Germans and Mr. Pecchia says, " both sides used their best troops." In Sam’s opinion the American’s used good intuition and changed their plans on their own, but the Germans waited for higher commanding officers to tell them what to do. Sam also believes the "good Lord was with him" when a jeep he was in was driving across a landmine field when both he and the driver were ejected from their seats. Sam was left unharmed, but the driver was injured with a broken arm, a broken ankle and he lost his left eye. So Sam threw the driver over his shoulder and ran across the minefield to the nearest road, where the first car he saw was an ambulance. The ambulance took the driver to the nearest hospital where he survived his injuries. Sam received the Bronze Star for saving the jeep driver’s life, and three invasion stars for the invasions he took part in. Sam himself was never seriously injured; his friend only shot him with a French pistol on accident. His friend, who didn’t know much about guns, picked up the gun, pointed it at Sam and shot him in the side of the thigh with a pellet. Sam fully recovered.

Sam desperately wanted to go home to his big family and go back to school, but when he went over seas he went with the idea of winning the war, and they did.( Sam pats himself on the back because he feels as if he saved many people’s lives.) Mr. Pecchia is glad he served, but he wouldn’t do it again. Sam believes the world changed for good after the war and he is proud of his generation because of so many people who lined up for blocks and blocks to join the service. Sam didn’t want to become an officer, he wanted to coach and finish college. Sam married in 1948 and had two daughters who are now 52 and 44 years old.

Sam Pecchia was sent some statistics from a friend who was also in the war. The statistics include: 6,370 American casualties compared to 47,264 German casualties and 1,128 American’s killed in action compared to 15,276 German’s killed in action. These statistics were from Mr. Pecchia’s division. Also one city in France, Metz was never taken by any invading forces until World War II. General Patton gave his commodations to Sam’s division.

Mr. Pecchia believes that the war brought the United States to the number one country in the world and showed other countries what they would have to deal with. Also the war showed our allies they could count on us if they were ever in need. While in Sam was still in Germany, President Roosevelt died. The American soldiers didn’t know what to do because he was their commander and chief. They hoped he would live to see the end of the war. Sam said, "Truman did a tremendous job of taking Roosevelt’s place."

Even though Sam didn’t serve in the Korean or Vietnam War he believes the American’s didn’t know who the enemy was so it made the war more difficult. He also says that these wars were undeclared.

When Sam was 19 he was listening to the Greenbay Packers play football and someone announced that Pearl Harbor was attacked. Sam woke his dad up and told him the news and Sam’s dad said, " Don’t worry the war will be over before you have to serve in the military." Sam Pecchia thinks there could be some comparison to September 11,2001 to December 7, 1941 because both attacks were a surprise. The part that differs from both was that people now have to face the attacks on their soil and the people during World War II don’t know what it’s like to have this tragedy right in front of them. He also thinks today’s Military soldiers are trained better and are much smarter. Sam also said that war today is more technical. Sam thinks it’s great that people serve in the military, but wishes more people would make a career out of it.

After the war Sam decided not to make a career choice out of his military service because he wanted to become a coach. Sam attended the University of Minnesota and got his bachelor’s degree. After teaching in Minnesota Sam taught a Ramona High School in Riverside, California where he coached football and baseball. He also taught at Arlington High School in Riverside, California and made his coaching dream come true when he became head football coach and the first athletic director at Arlington. Mr. Pecchia was also named Riverside County Coach of the Year, twice and finally retired in 1986.