Eighty-eight photographs with captions and credits, check. I would like to thank Mrs. Clara Gularte for lining up her six daughters in age order–I think I’ve got them right– in this 1944 photograph, at a family barbecue on the ranch at the entrance to Corbett Canyon. It was taken just before her two soldier-sons went overseas. She made it easy, lining up those girls, on us History Types. This is a beautiful photo of a beautiful family, and many thanks to Annie and John Silva.

The tragedy of the photo is that Frank, kneeling, wouldn’t make it home. He would be killed in France on November 29, 1944; his little boy would be born five days later. Shortly after the joy of Frank Jr.’s birth, his wife, Sally, and the family got the worst telegram, from the War Department, that a family could possibly get.

On December 13, a memorial mass was said for Frank at St. Patrick’s. Four days after that, his brother, Manuel, standing in this photo, went into action with his artillery battery at St. Vith to cover the American retreat in the Battle of the Bulge. That was the day that Arthur Youman entered Bastogne with his outfit, the 101st Airborne Division.

It was Youman’s twenty-third birthday.

I’ve been living with this war for a year now. It’s getting a little overwhelming.