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Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
My dad, Steven J. Michniewicz, was born in Bellows Falls. Except for his tenure of service in the U.S. Army during World War II, he spent all of his 85-year life there. He didn't talk about being in the war at all, until his last few years, when he started to share some with my sisters and me.
At one point during the war, he and his fellow troops were stationed on a boat – for a month, I believe - awaiting the next action.
They played lots of poker, and my dad (the quintessential taciturn Vermonter with the poker face) won so many times that he was able to send enough money back to build himself a home upon his return from the war. I grew up in that house; he died in it.
They sailed to England for a period of training at the base in Glatton, and then he was in Africa - Algiers, I believe. He was in the Army Corps of Engineers, and he worked on building landing airstrips, among other things. There, they fought the Germans. Afterward, they moved into Italy. Toward the war's end, they were in France.
