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The Passing of an American Hero Who We Don’t Deserve
For those who might remember, I wrote a post four years ago about a patient of mine who was there when Mussolini died. If you don’t recall, check out the post — he had an extraordinary life story. Absolutely extraordinary. I attended his 100th birthday party and brought my youngest daughter. She was a sophomore in high school at the time and wasn’t thrilled about spending the evening with a bunch of old people. I told her, “You will tell your grandchildren that you shook the hand of someone who was there when Mussolini died. You’re not missing this. Trust me. You’re going.” She grumbled as only a teenage girl can. But she went.
And she was fascinated by his depictions of WWII – she thought of it as something like the Peloponnesian War, something in the gauzy distant past not relevant to modern intellectuals like ourselves, and was dazzled to talk to somebody who was actually there, wearing uncomfortable boots and trying not to get killed. She had learned about Nazis in school. But he talked about crummy weather and broken down Jeeps. It made it more real to her. Plus, he hired a big band for the event — it was a great party. She actually liked the music of his era. Although she still prefers Pit Bull and Eminem. Which is fine.
Mr. Tony Cocchini died yesterday, two months short of his 104th birthday. He was an extraordinary man, who led an extraordinary life. Godspeed, Mr. Cocchini. It was a privilege to know you, and an honor to care for you. I thank you for educating my daughter. And for educating me. And for educating anyone who would listen. Lord knows, you did your best to share what you had learned.
We humans make the same mistakes over and over again. It almost gets boring, it’s so predictable. Perhaps, just perhaps, if we listened to those who had experienced these very same mistakes, we might be able to avoid them ourselves.
Or perhaps not. We don’t listen. My teenage daughter listened, after some paternal nagging. Most of us lack the curiosity even of a teenage girl who knows everything (as I knew everything, when I was a teenager). I pray that we can awake from our egomaniacal slumber.
I doubt that we will. But I admire Mr. Cocchini’s optimism. He kept trying. As best he could.
If we allow Western Civilization to be destroyed by tyrants, we will not be able to blame the like of Mr. Cocchini. He did all he could.
He tried to explain how Mussolini and Hitler were just there to help the unfortunate, and how a decent person would naturally want to support them. You wanted to help the unfortunate, right? Once you realized that giving them power may involve some risk, it was too late. By the time you realized what the game was, you had already lost.
Mr. Cocchini spoke of the leaders of various Italian villages who were amazed that Mussolini was not as interested in their well-being as he had presented himself to be. He really seemed to care. How could they have bought into his propaganda? Mr. Cocchini didn’t understand at the time. But he did later. And he resolved to teach the rest of us what he had learned.
My daughter learned in school that Nazis were simply evil. Mr. Cocchini helped explain how it wasn’t always entirely clear who the bad guys were. At least, not at first. But those bad guys tended to want power. And that alone should make one cautious. Regardless of their apparent compassion. Feigned compassion, as he learned, was easy. What came next was rarely easy.
But on the front end, everything seemed so nice. So compassionate.
The FBI raid of a former President’s home shocked me. But it probably would not shock Mr. Cocchini. He had seen this sort of thing before. And he told us about it. And we didn’t listen.
Because we lack the curiosity even of an egomaniacal teenager. And Facebook’s ‘Fact-checkers’ backed us up. And not all of us have a nagging Dad, dragging us to go meet this old geezer, who knows more about the world than we will ever understand. Like, whatever, dude.
Which is our fault. Not Mr. Cocchini’s.
Thank you, Mr. Cocchini. Thank you for trying to explain human nature to my daughter, and to me, and to everyone else.
I hope to see you again one day. Under better circumstances.
Godspeed, to an American hero.
Mr. Cocchini’s daughter (who is in her early 80s) is in contact with me. If you wish, I will pass your comments along to her. She understands the significance of her father, and is comforted by the impact he left on the rest of us.
Godspeed, Mr. Cocchini. I can’t thank you enough.
And neither can the rest of us.
Published in General
Memory eternal! I hate liking a death. Rather, say I like this as a celebration of his life.
I have always thought that one of the best things that could ever happen to a person is to stumble onto an unplanned geopolitical event.
The Cuba picture is perfect.
Well done.
Please express our condolences to his daughter. What a great man. I remember the story. I had just finished the book Beneath a Scarlet Sky when you wrote it and you gave me goose bumps. It was a terrible time in world history and he didn’t choose that hand he was dealt but he played it well. God speed Mr. Cocchini.
Another great history, and reality, lesson. Why I am so into the WWII sniper novels now. The risk those guys took were unlike anything I could imagine. A few Viet Nam Vet pals had horror stories but not on that scale. Guam, Iwo Jima, Omaha Beach, although the Russian stories now getting played out on a much smaller scale in the Ukraine. He sure had an interesting life.
Anthony Fauci (probably)
As your daughter apparently experienced, first and second hand contact with history beats basic prose.
I trace my near lifelong opposition to communism and socialism to three factors of first and second hand contact:
When I was 8 years old I got to see the then-new Berlin Wall, and see first hand that it was built by the East German government to keep East German people in;
The summer I graduated from high school I got to visit the Soviet Union and see first hand the deprivations even the relatively well off people had to live with; and
In my teens and 20s I had a couple of opportunities to meet and to hear from people who had lived in and escaped from communist Eastern Europe. Hearing directly from them their stories of what they lived with (and without) and then the efforts they had to undertake to leave created quite an impression in my mind.
I am concerned that too few people in the last 40 or so years have heard directly from people who have lived under totalitarian rule, and thus too much of it is gauzy abstractions instead of real life experiences.
The gentleman’s honor and integrity are obvious in the first picture. He looks straight into the camera.
One of my cousins told of visiting our Grandparent’s ranch in the 1960s. There was a social event and he listened to the neighborhood ranchers and farmers talk. They were all WW2 vets and had served around the world. He was astonished to hear the places they had been, and the things they had done. They’re all gone now.
Wife and daughter in Berlin in 1990 on a school trip and brought back a piece of the wall. Hope we did not lose it.
I think it is absolutely fantastic that Mr. Coccini shared his experiences. So many who lived through those times could not, or did not. I am reminded of conversations between my in-laws that were punctuated with “You never told me that!”
And how wonderful for your daughter to have met him. One day she can tell her grandchildren about Mr. Coccini. And she will.
When someone lives to 104, you cannot be sad at their passing from this life. They have lived every moment. May the angels lead him to Paradise.
Dr B, I love your stories that involve your family. Also – compared to the respected Mr C youse guys are GIANTS!!!
No. We’re not.
What a great man! What a long life he had! He touched many in those years.
I just got your joke. Sorry – I’m a bit slow.
Yes, we’re tall.
But Mr. Cocchini is the giant.
Like the Italians that stood beneath the window of the Papal Apartment of Pope John Paul II and applauded as he was dying, they were applauding a life well-lived. As strange as that may seem to us, I found it moving.
I applaud Mr. Cocchini. Offer his daughter my condolences and my deep respect for a life well lived.
But your daughters, at least two of them, are taller. You have Nordic genes?
I envy you and your daughter, getting to hear from a man who was there. (My dad fought at Anzio; don’t know if he was in Operation Shingle in the reinforcements after the beachhead was established. He never talked about his time in the war.)
May Mr. Cocchini rest in Abraham’s bosom, until that day when the last trumpet sounds.
My daughter is 15 years old, there. She was only 6’2″ or so at that time. She later grew to be 6’4″.
My genes are German, Dutch, and English/Nordic. So I guess that explains the tall part. Mr. Cocchini was not very tall.
But again, in that picture, Mr. Cocchini is the giant. No question. My daughter would say the same thing.
I have several great-uncles that served in the Pacific during those times, two on Guadalcanal. They would change the subject.
My dad was eager to tell me his stories as I loved history. Watched the West Point stories and submarine TV movies. So heard all about Bouganville, Saipan (where he met John McCain’s dad, a sub commander), Pelielue, working with Army Air Corps in Leyte, Iwo Jima. Ate it up. What an experience for a 22 year old. Mine much tamer. Thanks to the Kitty Hawk pilots.
Our three girls are Russian, and they’re 5’4″ and shorter. I like to think our kids offset his . . .
If you like this political analysis, you might like this Julie Kelly interview of Lee Smith.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-95-julie-and-liz-talk-to-lee-smith-about-the-mar/id1534423504?i=1000575877679
I don’t really like this type of analysis, but I forced myself to listen to it twice already. I think it’s pretty much the way it is.
It’s really hard to know who the bad guys are unless there’s a sound track with appropriate music. And it also helps if the bad guys are the ones with the bad haircuts and bad teeth.
Every time I see an American pose in front of that representation of Che Guevara I want to cringe. Would they pose as proudly in front of a rendering of Heinrich Himmler or Reinhard Heydrich?
It was only through the courtesy of the Bolivian Army that prevented Guevara from rolling up numbers (of dead) equal to those two Nazis.
We don’t deserve he.
I have a piece of the Wall too.
I have a piece of the hole in the Wall.
My running mates and I had a booth at the local bluegrass festival. We had the chance to talk with lots of vets. I learned alot.
A few weeks before Daughter went to Brazil for the post-high school gap year, we drove up to Fargo. Road Trip! We stopped in small towns, checked out the attractions (“America’s Biggest Turkey”), listened to 80s rock. At one point I had to pull over into Perham and take an onboarding call for a new podcast sponsor; I’m walking around in a pocket park declaiming my enthusiasm to push this new perfume while Daughter is sauntering up and down the Main Street of a fine and prosperous little town, soaking up the last memories of America before heading off to the Southern Hemisphere.
I mention this because it was an important trip, in nearly every detail. We were headed up to see Dad before she left for a year, because, well, you never know. Dad loved Natalie, and vice versa. She thought he was amazing, which he was, and was also cognizant of the manifest differences betwixt pere and fils. (Such as, pere would never use a French phrase to describe something, but damn certain fils would.) After a meal at one of Fargo’s 1,245 restaurants – no one eats at home, everyone goes out – we went back to the house and sat down at the kitchen table, and talked.
Well.
My dad never told the kids anything about his war experience. I only learned of what he did when he told it to my wife, in my presence. This was not unusual. He had told some stories in Natalie’s presence before, but that was when she was younger; now she’s at the age where things get fixed in place. We got out some boxes from the garage, and they had memorabilia I’d never seen. The certificate issued to newbies who had their first equator crossing. Photos of Dad grinning in tropical lands. Government letters. He told stories, she interjected often, fascinated. I learned he’d had a ringing in his left ear since the war from shelling. Tales of taking the wheel in the Caribbean on the subchaser, still a lubber, sea sick; watching a German fish hiss through the water a yard ahead of the bow; the barracks assignment swap that kept him off the Indianapolis; and more.
What neither of them knew was that I was rolling tape on most of it. I slid my phone out and hit VIDEO and caught a lot. She was always annoyed when I just had to take video of things, but someday she’ll find this, and I think she’ll be grateful. It’s proof: she not only met a hero, he knew her, and loved her. It’s one thing to consider the people who made your world possible, but it’s another to hug goodnight, and say thanks.
My dad had (and I now have possession of) that same certificate.
And one of my Dad’s cousins, Clifford Sebastian, was a radio man on the Indianapolis, Lost At Sea.