Herman Borgogononi

• General Notes
  • Clarksdale Press Register
    November 16, 2000
    Seven brothers serve country
    
    The day eldest son Herman hugged her good-bye, Maria Borgognoni's hair was ebony.
    Like millions of young Americans in 1942, Herman was headed for wherever the military sent him. By the time he returned to Clarksdale, five of his brothers would have joined him in serving their country. Four years of bloody combat and two atomic bombs later, the United States and its Allies had won World War II. And Maria Borgognoni's hair had turned alabaster.
    "I can see her right now," recalls Herman, now a 90-year-old who walks with a cane and wears thick glasses, but remembers Pearl Harbor as clear as yesterday. "I went to hug Mama and there were tears in her eyes. Her hair was so black and shiny. We boys all knew what was ahead, but when I looked into her face, I realized Mama knew, too."
    Maria Ciucioli Borgognoni - mother of 11, seven of whom were sons who served in the military - had her own battle to fight. A native of Filetto, Italy, Maria had come to America for freedom and a better way of life. Now she was asked to defend it.
    As a 15-year-old who couldn't read or write English, Maria had met and married another Italian immigrant, Roger Borgognoni of Montemarchiano. They moved to Greenville, Glen Allen, and eventually, Clarksdale, searching always for the richest soil.
    He truck-farmed; she raised children. Roger's vegetables were part of the battle plan: Soldiers must be fed. But the machine of war - a ghoulish maw that chewed up young men, some still in high school, and spit out combat-ready soldiers - that vehicle for world peace also was hungry.
    Maria offered all she had: her sons.
    "I remember seeing this in the front window," says Herman, gently tracing the homemade banner now kept in a treasured family album. His mother's sign featured an American flag with six large blue stars, one for each of her boys sent off to be a soldier. Praying not to become another "gold star mother," women whose sons died in battle, Maria carefully lettered three words upon the standard: "Served our country."
    Gathered round Johnny Borgognoni's kitchen table, the brothers think back to the day they heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, a sneak attack that killed thousands of Americans and triggered a world war that would test a generation.
    Albert Borgognoni - at 78, he's still working at Clarksdale's Liberty Cash Grocery Store - was in a shiny black 1939 Ford, packed with high-spirited young men headed for a dance club, the Pecan Acre Grill in Shelby. To set the mood, they'd turned the radio on loud. But instead of boogie-woogie, President Franklin Roosevelt's voice crackled across the air waves. The nation was at war.
    Word reached 14-year-old Reno in the garden. Snatches of news had drifted from the family's parlor radio to the land he was tending.
    "Listening to Roosevelt," says Reno, 73, "I thought, 'well, this thing is coming down to hard knocks,' Everybody was going to have to put their lives on the line for our country.
    "We didn't believe in being scared back then. Besides, we were so young, we all thought we'd go over and lick this thing in a couple of months and be home, back to normal pretty quick."
    A married man, Herman had foreseen the draft and enlisted in the Air Force. Better to choose your own branch of the service than wait for the Army's, he thought.
    The Air Force sent Herman not "off to the wild blue yonder," but down the road to Greenville. A buck sergeant in charge of cutting meat for daily chow, he "got so good at it, they kept him there for the duration," his brothers tease.
    It wasn't combat, but it was hard work. A tattered newspaper clipping from that era notes that it took Herman six hours every day to carve 20 quarters of veal into the 1,200 pounds of meat consumed by his fellow soldiers.
    As they came of age, one after another of the Borgognoni brothers - including Reno who was drafted after his sophomore year of high school - were either called up or enlisted. Johnny, 76, served overseas in anti-aircraft balloon barrages. His twin Joe was in the Philippines with the third unit of the 621 Air Craft Control and Warning Squadron. For Mike, the handsome brother now deceased who'd enlisted six months before Pearl Harbor, it was the Army Signal Corps in China, India and Burma. Albert became a corporal, serving as a quartermaster with the Army's 305 Battalion and later in England, with the 106th Infantry. Near the end of the war, the Army's 42nd Rainbow Division sent Reno to Germany, Austria and Bavaria.
    Only youngest son Paul would be spared World War II. But Maria's sacrifice wasn't sufficient. In 1953, Paul was drafted for the Korean War. Given "top secret clearance," he was part of the Army's operations and intelligence units.
    "We had the greatest servicemen in the world during World War II," says Herman. "And we had the greatest country. Nobody fussed about what had to be done. Everyone just went to work to win the war."
    Miraculously, they all came home with bragging rights and near-misses, but nary a scratch. Maria pasted all their photographs and newspaper clippings into an album, tucked away for another generation to discover. Inside are the flurry letters channeled through the Borgognoni sisters, especially Rosa, the family secretary who had to translate messages for their parents. Telegrams like the one Reno sent, saying, "Dear Mom, here is Lazy Bones saying hello again and love to all." Cards bearing Mother's Day greetings from "Chickie," who was "tired and homesick" and Albert's admonition, "All well and safe. Please don't worry."
    Back home, the Borgognoni brothers married, had children, built careers - often based upon skills they acquired in the military. They joined the V.F.W. and American Legion, became old men who swapped war stories at family reunions. But inside, memory lived.
    "I remember my father hugging me, crying, the day I left," says Herman. "He told me to be a good man, do a good job, and don't never do nothing to shame our name."
    While none were eager to make the military a permanent way of life, the Borgognoni brothers - to a man - are grateful they had the opportunity to serve their country.
    "We grew up in the Army," says Albert. "It made us more responsible, made us men."
    "It was good training," says Paul. "We learned about discipline, survival, the way advancement hinges on better education."
    The brothers ticked off other military lessons.
    "We learned to wash clothes, make beds," says Paul. "Basic living skills."
    "I learned a lot about other people, different ways of living," says Reno, whose mind is marked with the memory of Germany's beautiful countryside and the hours he spent in the ring boxing for the Army.
    Chuckling, Herman throws his two cents in. "I learned to peel potatoes."
    There was another, unexpected benefit for the Borgognoni family. "The military gave me a chance of a lifetime to go to Italy," says Paul, who used his 30-days leave to explore his mother's homeland, search for lost relatives. "That created a connection for our family. We all have been back and forth to visit."
    Maria's brother, Uncle Nazzereno, was still alive when she finally set foot once more upon Italian soil. "He was in diapers when she left," says Paul. "She was 51 the next time she laid eyes on him."
    The reunion of family spread across two continents. Quite a medal of honor for a woman who gave all she had.