Eddie proudly served with the 82nd airborne, 504th Infantry, 3rd Battalion, "I" Company.

He first jumped in Africa, then fought in five European Campaigns: Sicily, Salerno, Cassino, Anzio, and Normandy.  He was captured in Normandy and spent 11 months in German concentration camps and as slave labor in Hitler's coalmines before he was liberated in April of 1945. He witnessed and endured things that no person should have to experience.  He earned many medals, but would gladly have traded them all to have never seen a friend die in battle or to have never had to pull the trigger himself.

The 504th was held back from the initial Normandy campaign because of the devastation they had just endured in Anzio.  Regardless, Eddie volunteered to jump with the Pathfinders of the 508th.  They were the first to jump that night prior to D-Day and had the mission to set up beacon lights that would help guide the rest of the airborne invasion.  Eddie, as were many of the other Airborne that actually survived the jump that night, was dropped miles off target and had to try to fight his way to safety while miles behind the lines.  He earned a Bronze Star Medal during the night of the jump, and then the Distinguished Service Cross on June 9 for heroic action in battle.

He was captured and severely beaten on June 9, 1944. The Germans lined up three guys in front of Eddie and shot them.  He was then forced to dig four graves, one for each of the dead men, and one extra.  Thus started his next 11 months of the unthinkable.

Eddie earned a Distinguished Service Cross, 3 Bronze Star Medals (one with a V for Valor), and 7 Purple Hearts.  Added to these were the Distinguished Unit Citation, the Combat Infantry Badge (for 5 campaigns and with one Oak Leaf Cluster,) American Defense Medal, American Campaign Medal, WWII Victory Medal, and the EMEA Campaign medal with 5 bronze stars and an arrowhead for first in battle. Additionally he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Palm, the French Fourragere, the Belgian Fourragere and the Netherlands Orange Lanyard.

But of all the medals he earned, he was the most proud of his Airborne wings.  He always said that those were the ones he had to earn; the rest just came with the job.

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