Francis "Fran" Eugene Resta was born in July 1925 in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His father was an Italian immigrant who became a warrant officer and band commander in the Army. His mother, an Ohio farm girl, taught school in one-room schoolhouses. Resta lived the first five years of his life at Fort Crook, Nebraska, then moved to Fort Shafter in Hawaii. His father was very strict, and as a middle child Resta was very rebellious, and said he was beaten a lot, so probably had PTSD [Annotator's Note: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] when he went into the Army. From the third grade when his parents, older sister and younger brother were transferred, the family lived at West Point, New York. General Omar Bradley, then a colonel of the Ninth Army, was his Boy Scout leader. Resta felt that Bradley was a foster father to him and helpful in the formation of his adult personality. He notes that West Point was the epitome of the Army caste system, and he was fond of bucking that system. Resta was sent away for his senior year of high school on a scholarship at the New York Military Academy, primarily, he thinks, to interrupt his relationship with an enlisted man's daughter. He underwent hazing almost every night, but got good grades and was accepted into the ASTP, the Army Specialized Training Program.

Because of the discrimination in the Army caste system, Francis Resta said he came to really hate the Army. But when the war came along, everybody wanted to be in, and he went to a New York City recruitment office and enlisted. Resta remembers listening to the radio broadcast about the attack on Pearl Harbor, and considered it a "call to arms." His eyes were weak and he failed the physical. He was devastated, and his father was furious about the rejection. He was sent to live with relatives in order to establish residency in another district, and his father arranged for the eye exam to be conducted by a comrade who approved Resta's eligibility. He was inducted through Fort Myer, near Arlington, Virginia and went to basic training for ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program] candidates at Fort Benning, Georgia. From there he went to Purdue University, and shortly thereafter the program was cancelled. It was a real blow, but Resta was happy about the opportunity to get into combat. He was assigned to the 407th Regiment of the 102nd Infantry Division [Annotator's Note: Company B, 1st Battalion, 407th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division] at Camp Swift, Texas, where he felt he had great leadership, and was soon deployed overseas as a mortar gunner.

Francis Resta was in B Company [Annotator's Note: Company B, 1st Battalion, 407th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division], the weapons platoon, which had shipped out on a small refitted freighter through rough weather across the Atlantic to a port in England, then along to Cherbourg, France. Almost everybody aboard got seasick during the two week transport. They were initially told they would be fighting for the submarine pens at Brest, France, but Brest fell before he got into any action there. Next they were told they would be one of the divisions to serve as the occupation army for Normandy. This was when it was anticipated that the war would be over by Christmas but it was realized that wouldn't be the case, and the regiment would be needed for combat. Resta's division was attached to the 29th Division [Annotator's Note: 29th Infantry Division]. His regiment panned for mines along the Normandy beaches, and dug latrines for the advancing troops. He mentions that usually when a regiment was decimated, it got pulled to the rear, the soldiers got a rest and were outfitted with replacements, and they trained together. This was not true of the Russian and American troops who were replacing bodies as soon as they were lost, making the new men a liability to the veteran fighters. It was particularly poignant for Resta because to him, losing members of Company B was like losing members of his family. Resta lost his beloved captain and was wounded himself at Welz, Germany on 30 November 1944. The 407th Regiment had 57 percent casualties in their fight on the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications constructed by the Germans in the 1930s] that day, but the mission was successful. He finds it offensive that the division's history gives the 406th Regiment credit for taking Welz on 2 December. It shows, Resta said, how fragile history can be.

In September 1944, Francis Resta was attached to the 29th Infantry Division and he saw his first combat at Birgden, Germany. It was a see-saw battle, the Allies taking the town in the daytime and losing it during the night. That went on for three weeks. After Birgden, they moved on to Puffendorf, Immendorf, Kamen Kerken, Herfensweiler, and then Welz on the way to the Rhine. The company's [Annotator's Note: Company B, 1st Battalion, 407th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division] 57 mile march took six months. They were moving through the Siegfried Line which was heavily fortified, and the weather was "horrendous." As a mortar gunner, he set up mortars behind a building or wall, so he didn't see where his rounds were going. When his position was detected, he would pick up his equipment and run to a new place of relative safety. There was little time to eat, sleep, or socialize and fatigue was always an issue. Night fighting often meant they were laying covering fire for returning patrols. Resta said the guys in camp worried like "mother hens" when a patrol returned later than expected. Resta said introduction to combat is where a soldier learns to make his own rules. Resta observed that, unfortunately, a soldier sometimes carries that conviction back into his civilian life. [Annotator's Note: Resta is the author of a book titled "The Combat Veteran and PTSD".] For a seven month period after Resta returned to the United States, his father coached him though a difficult period when most of Resta's returning buddies were drinking and getting into trouble. Resta credits his father's ministrations with keeping him from being a "lost soul" like those guys.

He never wants to forget how bad war is, and Francis Resta said he will always protest American involvement in political engagements such as those the War Department has waged since World War 2. During his first combat experience, Resta got the nickname "Mole" from diving into mortar holes for cover. He mentioned that soldiers learn to "tune out" the chaos that goes on around them, and survival becomes an unconscious reaction. At Birgden, the animals of the abandoned farms were running loose in the "no man's land" between the Allies and the Germans, and many were caught in the crossfire of battle. The troops lived off the slaughtered pigs, sheep, geese and chickens, and Resta's platoon [Annotator's Note: Resta served in the weapons platoon of Company B, 1st Battalion, 407th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division] became known for having good meals. At Geilenkirchen, the platoon became an assault unit, stormed an ammunition dump, seized jeeps, weapons and ammunition. They escaped just before it blew up and handed the booty out to other soldiers in their division. Resta declared that the Germans were shooting Allied medics and ambulances, using their identifying red crosses as targets. He began therapy for post traumatic stress disorder in the 1990s. Resta had never talked with his companions or children about the horrors of war, but a symphony performance of Benjamin Britton's War Requiem triggered a dire reaction and the realization that he needed help. Resta went to the Veterans Administration for treatment. Through his book [Annotator's Note: Resta is the author of a book titled "The Combat Veteran and PTSD"], Resta had tried to covey how the war affects the combat soldier, but is not sure he has been successful.

When Francis Resta’s platoon [Annotator's Note: Resta served in the weapons platoon of Company B, 1st Battalion, 407th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division] attacked Geilenirchen, Germany, there was door-to-door fighting, and he was being fired upon from the upper stories and flat roofs of the houses. It's a memory he revisited every night for 30 years, just as he was falling asleep. He was given a therapeutic method to overcome the problem. When the platoon had taken the eastern part of the town, they had an idle period, and began scavenging the enemy's tanks for machine guns, ammunition, rations and medical kits, and ran into difficulties with the graves registration crews because they were not helping with the work of retrieving the dead. Resta said they never had a "recreation assignment," and he never saw a USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations] show. At Gersweiler they built a makeshift bunker and fired at the Germans all day through a small slit in a pair of sliding doors. Then they moved on toward Welz, which was part of the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications constructed by the Germans in the 1930s]. The mission was to eliminate German pillboxes, and they dug foxholes halfway across a beet field, and Resta said he thought the Germans were onto their plan and were shooting across the field. He was quite frightened, and rattled like never before. He thought it was an omen. When the Germans started firing 88s [Annotator's Note: 88mm multi-purpose artillery], Resta's comrades were falling three or four at a time, and some of the men ran.

The advance was uphill in a wooded area when Francis Resta's platoon [Annotator's Note: Resta served in the weapons platoon of Company B, 1st Battalion, 407th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division] approached Welz, and they began encountering friendly fire. Communications systems failed, and Resta was awarded a Bronze Star for running across a field to get clarification of his captain's instructions. There were a lot of casualties that day, and Resta was among them. He was hit in his left leg when he was standing by to a stove next to a guy who was killed. The wall of the building they occupied was blown out, and the two men were thrust against an armoire. Resta though he was dead. Others did too, because when the wounded were moved to the basement of the building, Resta was left lying where he dropped. There were no available medics, and Resta had to be taken to another division's aide station, many hours after he was hit. Resta recalls that his father sent newspaper articles about the war to him in the field, and that the New York Times article described the battle in almost the exact way in which the soldiers had been briefed, not in the way it had actually happened. Consequently, Resta remains skeptical about anything he reads in the newspapers.

Francis Resta was soaked in his comrade's blood, and, at first, mistaken for dead. He was given morphine and his memories of the events of that day are very hazy to him now. He does recall that his ride in the dark to the aid station was very uncomfortable. On arrival, Resta had his "worst moment" when it was determined that his leg was "gone." Resta said the experience was much more terrifying than combat. He was brought to a hospital in Maastricht, his leg destined for amputation. He was cold, nobody talked to him, and he felt forgotten, abandoned. A Dutch doctor believed he could get the 13 pieces of shrapnel out and save Resta's leg, and prevailed over the Army doctors who argued that there was too much nerve damage for such a procedure to work. The Army sent a premature telegram to his family saying he was seriously wounded, leading his father to believe he was on his way home. But he stayed in Europe, had good care, and a much needed rest. He proceeded to a tent hospital in Liege, Belgium. Then, by train, he went to a Paris hospital. While he was waiting on the platform in Paris, a little girl gave him a religious medallion, and although it was not standard issue Army apparel, he wore it for the rest of the war. German prisoners were being used as stretcher bearers at the Paris hospital, and in his drugged state, Resta lunged at one of them and fell off the stretcher. The German began crying, probably, Resta said, because the bearers had been told that if they dropped a G.I., they would be shot. Resta said it made him feel good at the time. The Paris hospital was clean and the food was good, but it was not equipped to heal Resta's wounds, so he was airlifted to a hospital in Southampton, England. Resta remembers thinking the nurses on the flight looked exhausted, but they took good care of him.

At the Southampton hospital, Francis Resta was treated for his shrapnel wounds as well as for frostbite to his feet. When he was mostly recovered, he stayed with a family in Glasgow and was amused that they ate beans on toast for breakfast. He was sent to Givet, France, and, threatened with being placed in the regular replacement units, Resta determined to return to his own division [Annotator's Note: 102nd Infantry Division]. He went AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent without leave], and hitchhiked across Belgium and Holland into the German-held area. He eventually found the 102nd Division at Krefeld on the Rhine, and the company commander had his AWOL record expunged. Resta said he was appalled at how many of his friends had been killed at Welz, but those who were left were glad to welcome him back. President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt] died during his time in Krefeld, and although they were in plain sight of the Germans, the Americans held a parade in Roosevelt's honor without being accosted by the enemy. There were no more assaults, but Resta said they fired the mortar constantly across the Rhine at the Dusseldorf area, where the German Army had massed. Restas's platoon [Annotator's Note: Resta served in the weapons platoon of Company B, 1st Battalion, 407th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division] then moved across the Wessel River chasing the retreating army north. They encountered many Germans who wanted to surrender to the British or American forces, to avoid being taken by the Russians. Resta said he watched the Russians shooting the Germans indiscriminately when the Allied armies met at the Elbe River. He said the Americans understood the furious Russian retribution, and while they couldn't do anything about it, they also didn't feel the Russian "killing field" approach was very fair. At that point the war was virtually over, and the Americans had "squatter's rights" in the German towns, requisitioning food, abusing the women, and generally treating the inhabitants badly during the early occupation.

Asked if he had interacted with any of the Russians, Francis Resta remembered working with them to gather the displaced Polish and American prisoners in a northern province of Germany that became a Russian zone, and also meeting them in southern Germany and Bavaria, near the Czechoslovakian border which the Russians had occupied. Resta said soldiers from the two countries traded needed supplies and shared pictures and newspapers until later, when the armies were separated and started shooting at each other. Resta said combat soldiers did some strange things. Resta also described arriving at the Gardelegen Concentration Camp where the Germans had herded countless prisoners into a barn and set it on fire before retreating. The conflagration was still smoldering when the Americans occupied the area. Some of the prisoners had tried to dig underneath the walls to escape, but had suffocated in the attempt. At times, Resta had guard duty over the remaining occupants of the camp, who were being kept there until they could be moved to displaced persons' facilities. Resta said he had been taught to hate, trained to kill, and taught to want to kill. They had been told about the atrocities that the Germans and Japanese were perpetrating, so any of the camps that were found made them want to annihilate the enemy. The Allies set up a hospital at Gardelegen, and coincidentally, Resta was treated there for a wound to his hand. He and another G.I. had engaged in a mock battle with German swords and Resta got the worst of it. He said the combat soldiers just couldn't stop fighting, and weren't fit for civil occupation.

When it was time to go back to the United States, Francis Resta was sent to a tent city at LeHavre, France to wait for a ship. LeHavre was still nothing but rubble two years after D-Day [Annotator's Note: the Normandy Invasion on 6 June 1944]. The soldiers stole food from the mess halls to feed the orphans who were living like animals around the base. A Victory ship [Annotator's Note: a class of cargo ship] brought Resta stateside in seven days. He said getting home was all the soldiers thought about while they were in Europe, and he was happy to find himself at Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: Fort Dix, New Jersey], getting discharged. While waiting for a train to his hometown, he fell asleep on the stairs to the platform, and was the victim of a pick-pocket. The culprit took his ticket, and he had to get help from the Grand Central Station USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations]. His mother ran down the street to meet him, and Resta said [Annotator's Note: Resta speaks with a catch in his throat] it was the best greeting that anybody could have. But Resta said that by the time he returned, the veteran's stories were old, the colleges were full, the jobs were scarce, and the girls reluctant to date ex-servicemen, making his homecoming difficult. Worst of all his father, who was an Army officer, treated him, even at home, like an enlisted man, reminding him that he was inferior, which Resta resents to this day. Resta admits that he and his buddies were drunk most of the occupation, often drunk on duty, and he was counseled for the problem. The officer who took him aside promoted him to buck sergeant [Annotator's Note: sergeant, or E-4] on the condition that if he got busted, it would cost his buddy his stripes. He stopped drinking. Resta couldn't wait to get out of service, and though he has an "intense, almost religious compassion for veterans," he said he has "no use for the military."

After he was discharged, Francis Resta attended college to study engineering, but when that didn't make sense to him, he moved to statistical sociology, psychology and anthropology. For financial reasons, he left school, went to New York City, and eventually found employment with Bell Telephone, working with engineers. He went back to college to get an industrial engineering degree, and said he had good jobs ever after, finally retiring from Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, California. He feels he owes the guys that didn't make it out of the war to tell their stories, and hopes that they are remembered.