Book Excerpt: Rita Cosby's 'Quiet Hero'

Rita Cosby

The following is an excerpt from ' Quiet Hero: Secrets from My Father's Past ,' Emmy-winning journalist Rita Cosby's book about her father's harrowing story as a WWII resistance fighter and prisoner of war:

The next thing he pulled out was an old metal cigarette box. It was so old and covered in rust and patina that it nearly blended into the suitcase's lining. "Oh, my goodness," he said, "my little metal box! This is it!"

He opened the box and pulled out his old dog tag from Stalag IV B. It was a small bit of metal with a perforation in its center so that it could be easily broken in half and used for identification purposes in the event of the prisoner's death. Each half was printed with my dad's prisoner number: 305147. No names, no other type of identification.

"It's made out of cheap steel," he said, quietly. "The Germans made us wear them. It was always around my neck, or in my pocket." He read the number to himself and shook his head gently. "You see," he said, "we were just numbers to them. Not even human being -- just numbers."

Suddenly, we both noticed a tiny silver pendant attached to the heavy Stalag IV B chain. It was a trinket of the Virgin Mary, which intrigued me, because I had never known my father to be an overtly religious man. "Dad," I said softly, "can you tell me about that pendant? Where did it come from?"

He smiled. "My mother gave me this," he said. "Right before the Uprising began. I wore it on a piece of string around my neck every day I fought. She gave it to me to protect me from the bullets during the Uprising. She said, 'This will be watching over you and keeping you safe.' I wore it every day, because when we went out on a mission I never knew if I would come back. I wanted all the protection I could get. The pendant is from Czestochowa, a very sacred Catholic place in Poland. It took a miracle for me to get out of there alive," he said. "It must have worked. It hung around my neck against my chest, which it turns out is the one part of my body that escaped injury. I was a lucky guy. I got out --a lot of my pals died." He said he made sure he brought it to the POW camp and attached it to the upper part of the chain closest to his neck, so it would be with him protecting him in his darkest hour.

It was the most profound treasure in his little metal box, and said more about him than all the words I could write. I knew for certain his mother would be happy to know he had it back.

Then, he delicately picked up a small piece of fabric with stars affixed to it. It was something I hadn't paid very much attention to, three small gold stars like the stars a child would get on a nicely done paper. They were crooked on the fabric, hastily placed. He lifted the piece of fabric and held it against his chest, next to his heart. It was so small it barely stood out at all, but I could see how much it meant to my dad. "These are my Purple Hearts," he said. "I think they must have made them so small because so many people were seriously injured during the war. They're not as big a deal as American Purple Hearts." It seemed fitting that the stars were so understated, just like the courageous people who fought in that war. Just like my dad himself. "So many of us were wounded that we couldn't worry about awards or recognition," he said. "I always think about those who didn't survive. They, and their families, are the ones who really deserve the fanfare."

Related Links: Rita Cosby on Her War-Hero Father

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