"Instantly!”
Asked by a student if he would serve in the Army again, World War II veteran Richard Rizzio replied immediately and forcefully, adding, "It's an honor.”
Joined by fellow veteran Jim Wibby, the Interlochen resident spoke Friday morning to four of Nancy Fitzpatrick's seventh grade geography classes at Traverse City East Junior High. The loosely formatted talk began with a description of their service and then the students led the rest of the discussion with inquiries. Each speaker spoke in turn to different classes.
The students questioned the men about everything from living conditions on the front lines — including food, clothing, weather, sleeping, bathing, equipment, learning languages and mail — to more philosophical questions about why they went, combat and homesickness.
Listening to answers in respectful silence, the students absorbed a living history lesson.
"What surprised me is that they cooked all that stuff in their [helmets,]” said Chandler Zablocki after the presentation. "I liked it because I don't like to read and hearing it from an actual World War II person makes it seem like I was there.”
Bree Gregory, whose great-grandfather fought in World War II, also appreciated the first-hand take on events.
"I thought it was more interesting to learn about it from them than just from a book,” she noted.
Fitzpatrick required that the students devise two questions before the talk, which she hosted to reinforce curriculum components of core democratic values and Eastern Hemisphere lessons. She also invited the visitors to lead each class in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, which they did with precise salutes and heartfelt recitation.
"I want the kids to hear WWII experiences first hand so they can get the real emotions of the men,” she said. "I want my students to understand and respect being U.S. citizens so they can use that knowledge and understanding when studying other countries.”
Jim Wibby joined the Army after he was 18 during the middle of the war. After Basic Training, he spent time in an Army accelerated college program that sent him to engineering school. After D-Day, those students were nabbed back into active duty and Wibby headed to Europe in August of 1944.
He spent his 20th birthday going house to house in Aachen, Germany looking for Germans to "say hello to,” Wibby said in his understated way.
Fierce battles were the norm as German soldiers furiously struggled to repel the invasion, causing high casualty rates on both sides. Wibby related how one six-week stretch saw the Americans advance only 20 miles while losing 6,000 soldiers.
"Most of the infantry divisions in World War II turned over at least once and a division was 18,000 men then,” he said. "A couple of them had double that.”
When he first fought in Germany, his 104th division encountered crack German SS Panzer troops.
"Later divisions, we ran into 13-14 year-old boys and there were a lot of men in their 50s and 60s,” Wibby noted of the desperate last measures of the Nazis.
Both Wibby and Rizzio took part in the Battle of the Bulge, a massive and decisive 51-day campaign during the frigid winter of 1944-45.
"This was probably the breaking point, we went into Germany and by May of 1945 the war was over,” recalled Rizzio.
As for being afraid, a question that came up repeatedly from the students, Rizzio noted that of course the soldiers were — it came with the territory.
"You're scared all the time, but it's a different kind of scared,” he said. "You know you have a job to do. It's not a scare where you're shaky, it's a fear that you just accept.”