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Iwo Jima vet and wife relive memories of a lifetime
Robert and Sylvia Blaszkiewicz have been married 25 years, but they've known each other for 40 years.
"You might not want to do a story on me," quips Robert, age 90. "I'm her fourth husband, and she buried the other three, plus a daughter. I sleep with one foot on the floor for fear she'll kill me during the night."
Sylvia Blaszkiewicz, age 96, just rolls her eyes and laughs. She's heard it before. Among all her husband's talents, he is definitely a good storyteller.
Robert Blaskiewicz grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.
"When I was a kid, I had to sleep on the front porch, because my sisters had the bedroom," Robert says. "It was so cold that I slept with my shoes on."
When he was 17, Robert enlisted in the Marines.
"I figured that, if I waited until I was drafted, I could be sent anywhere, so I enlisted in the Marines. No more cold days!!" the veteran chuckles.
However, the experience was no walk in the park. The Chicagoan was sent to Iwo Jima.
Blaszkiewicz: "The captain said, 'We've bombed this island for two weeks. It'll only take two or three days to take it. No prisoners.' It took 23 days! I went without a bath the entire time, and the bugs were this big! (two inches) They were all over my chest! After I came home from the war, I had a girl waiting for me. When she saw my chest, she jumped out of the bed, put her pants back on, and ran off without her shoes!"
War memories still haunt the Chicago native: "I can't stand the smell of cut grass or watch war movies. I have nightmares. I've tried. I'll have nightmares tonight (after talking about the war today)."
Many of Blaszkiewicz's memories are chilling.
"I killed a woman," he admits, reluctantly. "She was a sniper, hiding in a tree, with limbs tied to her arms. I emptied a clip into the tree, and she fell down. She was pregnant. Now, whenever I see a pregnant woman, my mind goes back."
One of Robert's buddies was a flame-thrower, whose job was to take out the enemy pill boxes, after his fellow Marines tossed a grenade in. The buddy came to Robert one day and said, "I don't think I'm gonna make it today. I want you to tell my family I love them."
On that day, as the young flame-thrower approached the enemy pill box, the enemy kicked back the grenade, and Robert's buddy was killed.
After he returned home, Blaszkiewicz went to the family and gave them their son's message; then he stayed and helped them with their restaurant, cleaning it up each night, in return for a hot meal.
Of all the wartime experiences in Iwo Jima, Blaszkiewicz says that the banzai attacks were the worst.
"They would come at us, waving their swords," the 90-year-old remembers. "This guy came at me, and the sun was in my eyes. I moved so that he was facing the sun; then I fell to my knees and stabbed him in the belly. If I had stabbed him in the chest, he would have kept coming."
According to the Iwo Jima veteran, the end of the war was especially brutal.
"The Japanese had no weapons, so they would sneak around at night and slit our throats," Robert says. "One night, I heard a noise. I must have smelled him. I slipped up on him and emptied a clip in him."
Blaszkiewicz's stories illustrate a clear fact about this particular war.
"They weren't going to give up the island," reports the former Marine.
At Nagasaki, the troops had to go to every home and search for weapons, because of an incident in which one of their men was beheaded.
"We took all their sabers, so they couldn't behead another man," Robert explains. He brought seven of these sabers back to the States with him.
Robert Blaszkiewicz admits that he saw the devastation after the dropping of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.
"It was as if their houses were made of cardboard," says the vet. "There was nothing to them."
After the hardship of the war, this brave Marine encountered a familiar situation when he returned home. There was no one to help him through the adjustment to everyday life.
"I was an animal," Robert admits. "One of my relatives saw me eating, and that's what he said: 'You're an animal!' I had nothing. I lived in my car for two years."
Remarkably, Blaszkiewicz conquered extremely difficult obstacles in his struggle to find his place in the work world:
"I had 15 jobs before I learned what I liked. I was a butcher for 15 minutes. A woman was standing at the counter. I said, 'Lady, make up your mind. We have a line here.' My boss said, 'That's my best customer--You're fired!'"
"I worked at a machine shop, making $80 a week, but my boss offered to teach me the tool and die business. I wanted to learn, so then I made $40 a week. My dad said, 'Where's the $80?' There are two times in my life when I've been called 'stupid,' and that's one of them."
The tool and die profession suited Blaskiewicz. "I liked making things. I couldn't wait to get to work."
Robert met his wife Sylvia at the machine shop, where she was a secretary, one of 14 children who grew up on a farm.
"We made a good team," Robert says. "The boss had to leave on a trip, and when he came back and saw how well the business had done, he gave us an extra week's salary."
One day the boss said, "I've never grossed a million dollars; if I gross a million this year, I'll buy you a new Cadillac." And he did.
Blaszkiewicz started his own business and later married his secretary Sylvia, a lovely lady who has traveled the world with him for 25 years.
"I've done everything I ever wanted to do," says Robert Blaszkiewicz. "The last thing I wanted to do was catch a sailfish. He's hanging on my wall at home."
This reporter spent an hour interviewing Robert and Sylvia Blaszkiewicz. There is no doubt that they had enough interesting stories to fill the pages of a book!
Safe travels back to Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Blaszkiewicz! May you enjoy many more trips to Florida.
But, please-park your Cadillac and fly!