Sometimes the research keeps traveling after I hand it back to the family.
I had the privilege of reconstructing the wartime service of PFC Natale Cusinato, who served with Company K, 132nd Infantry Regiment of the Americal Division in the Pacific.
His son Angelo grew up knowing pieces of his father’s war, but like so many children of World War II veterans, much of the story had never been spoken aloud. The archival documentation allowed us to begin putting those pieces back together.
Now Natale’s story has reached a much wider audience through Fra Noi, Chicago’s Italian-American magazine. Writer Samuel Tinaglia traces his extraordinary journey from Chicago and Italy to Guadalcanal and Cebu, and the life he carried home afterward.
I am especially happy to see this one published. Research begins in documents, but its real destination is always in the hearts of the people moved to tell their stories.