Unlike Memorial Day, when deceased veterans are honored, all veterans, living and deceased, are honored on Veterans Day. So even while we celebrate our surviving veterans, we still pray for those who have passed away, whether in battle, or as the result of wounds received in battle, and for those survivors whose wounds had always stayed in their hearts.
On Veterans Day, I will travel to visit the Wall (Vietnam Memorial) and meet with fellow veterans of the Vietnam War. We will greet each other mostly with smiles, reflect upon our missing comrades with a tear and love them deeply in our hearts. We will look around at the many memorials and walk Arlington Cemetery, recall the stories from the wars of our nationhood from the 17th to the 21st century. We have so many veterans to honor, those we personally greet and others whose names are etched in stone. At times, when we visit graves or monuments, we lay flowers on a marble base, bow our heads and shed a tear: a tear that slides down our chins and onto our lips so that we can savor that “salty taste of victory.”
But while thinking proudly of veterans from all our wars, all the homage they have received, one favorite prevails: my beloved aunt, Virginia Czarnowski Bucko.
Aunt Virge, who will celebrate her 100th birthday on Dec. 8, may be among the last women veterans of World War II. She served Poland, England and America from 1940 to 1945, and her story is incredible.
At age 16, as an American-born Polish farm girl of Westmoreland County in western Pennsylvania, Aunt Virge could barely wait to respond to Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. She had translated many radio broadcasts for her parents, native born Poles, so that they could fully understand the import of the tragedy in the homeland of their birth. The Poles were overrun in 1939, yet Polish troops did not cease fighting both the Nazi troops coming from the west and the Russian hordes pouring in from the east.
Their few, out-of-date biplanes were soon disabled, more from a lack of gasoline than combat loss, and what minimal armor they had was crushed quickly. Thousands of Polish troops went over the hill, not to hide, but to fight again — and again and again. They fought the Germans in France, Belgium, Romania, Palestine and Crete, and after the fall of those nations continued the fight from England. They were with the American, British and Canadian troops successfully invading Fortress Europe and fought on until they finally conquered. “No greater ally,” Winston Churchill said of the Poles.
Aunt Virge, who had never been any further away than a 25-mile trip to Pittsburgh, left home shortly after her 16th birthday and with her Christmas tips as a milk maid (less than $30), made her way to Montreal to join the battle against the Axis powers. America didn’t come into the war until a year later, Dec. 8, 1941. She tried to join the British Army, but they wouldn’t take her: too young. Across town, the Polish consulate accepted her and gave her train fare to go home to get her parents to sign the enlistment papers. She was off to England as a translator.
The first vivid memory of my youth was saying good-bye to my Aunt Virge as she left dressed in a multinational military uniform. Arriving in London, she endured the blitz and was assigned to the Polish Army as a translator. History notes that Polish pilots were skilled and so successful flying Spitfires and Hurricanes that they were soon training English pilots and writing flight manuals for the RAF. Aunt Virge had the skills to translate those manuals from Polish to English.
As more Poles arrived in England to continue the fight, they were billeted in Scotland and armored brigades formed. Aunt Virge was needed there as well, and there she met her “Sir Galahad” — my uncle, Edic Bucko. They were married in June 1944, just a few days before the Polish 1st Armored Division invaded Europe with the Allies. Edic was wounded in France, stayed in the field and later was part of the Operation Market Garden rescue of the British at Arnhem (as portrayed in the movie “A Bridge Too Far”). He fought on through Holland and into Germany until war’s end.
After the war, Edic Bucko couldn’t go home. Stalin had placed a death sentence on Polish officers, so she and Aunt Virge settled in Detroit and worked initially at Dodge Main. In time, they were successful enough to establish a home for Polish War veterans in Sterling Heights, Michigan. They ran that home successfully for 25 years until my uncle, Edic, passed away.
Aunt Virge still lives in their two-story home, just three blocks from the veterans’ home; alone and self-sufficient as she approaches her 100th birthday. She’s still a sweetheart to the many she cared for, the multitude she served, and to me, who she still calls her “loving nephew.”
With that story, on Veterans Day and every day, I still savor that salty taste of victory.
Blandin “Bill” Karabinos is the chaplain — Chaplain Bill — for the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment’s veterans of Vietnam and Cambodia (11thACVVC). He lives in Toano.
