For World War II Army veteran Cpl. James J. Thorton, honoring veterans, past and present, means everything.
The 94-year-old was stationed in North Africa during the war, installing telecommunications poles and wires for the areas the Allied forces took over.
“He was all over Northern Africa, Libya, Egypt, Casablanca, and he has pictures from the sphinx and the pyramids,” said his son-in-law Bob Corsini. “He got dysentery and they had to fly him somewhere else, then he ended up in Libya.”
The two couldn’t recall at the time the exact years Thorton was enlisted.
Corsini added Thorton has limited hearing in his left ear, and lost hearing in his right ear when he was installing the lines and bombs were going off around him.
Thorton said the conditions he was in during the war weren’t the greatest, and the guys “had to watch for the scorpions and the bugs.”
While he couldn’t recall some of the stories from his time, his son-in-law recounted a time when Thorton was receiving medical assistance at a British camp and “the guys wouldn’t share their beers with him.”
“They resented the fact that they needed help,” said Corsini. “If we didn’t help them, we’d all be speaking German. They resented it at the time. Without our help, especially D-Day, Britain would have fallen to the Germans and we were up next.”
Thorton did not participate in the Normandy invasion.
On Memorial Day, Thorton said he feels bad for the guys who didn’t make it home.
“It’s Memorial Day every day for me because I think so much of all of the fellas that died,” he said. “Every day, I feel so sorry for them. I think of their mothers and fathers. I ended crying and I think so much of them too.”
Corsini added Thorton likes that people come together on Memorial Day and recognizes that it’s a holiday of remembrance.
Following his service, Corsini said Thorton drove for SEPTA and retired in the early 1960s. Since then, he’s “retained his military teachings” and makes it a mission for himself to be punctual and to not start the next thing until the previous task is 100 percent finished.
“I’ve learned to respect the service members more than I did before,” said Corsini. “He causes me to think when he’s sharing his experience, when he can remember.”
Corsini said students today would benefit from doing research via Google or an encyclopedia to learn about past wars outside of required schoolwork.
“Some of the movies he’ll see on TV, he’ll say ‘that’s a bunch of crap, they didn’t do that,’ but other ones he’ll recognize as more realistic like ‘Stalag 17’ about the escape from a prisoner of war camp,” said Corsini.
Corsini said Thorton and the family are usually in the Mantua-Wenonah Memorial Day parade on May 27.
“For those who put their lives on the line and didn’t make it back, we honor them,” said Corsini.
The 94-year-old now consumes much of his time hanging out with family, playing solitaire on a computer, researching things online or stopping by the Mantua VFW.
Corsini added the best way for anyone to honor veterans is to simply thank them for their service.
