Long Island WWII vets join trip to New Orleans war museum to tell their stories to historians 

At 102, World War II veteran Dominick Critelli has a lot of stories to tell and many more songs to play on his saxophone.

The Floral Park resident is planning to do both when he heads to New Orleans Wednesday on a flight from Long Island MacArthur Airport. He will be among 18 veterans from around the country, including eight from Long Island.

“I’ve never been there,” said Critelli, a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant and member of the 377th Infantry Regiment’s Artillery Aviation Unit who helped get trapped soldiers vital supplies during the Battle of the Bulge in Europe. “Maybe I’ll find some musicians to play with and jam.”

Critelli, a lifelong player who will bring the instrument on the trip, will visit the National World War II Museum as part of the Gary Sinise Foundation’s Soaring Valor Program where historians will document his story. There will also be 38 high school participants, including 20 students from Wantagh High School, who will accompany the veterans on the visit and a tour of the museum.

Sinise, an actor and humanitarian, has a long history of supporting veterans. He established the foundation in 2011 to fund various programs that assist veterans and their families. Making sure the unique experiences of World War II veterans are remembered and archived came from a very personal connection with his Uncle Jack, who served in the Air Force as a navigator on B17 bombers that flew more than 30 missions over Europe.

When Sinise found out his uncle, a longtime donor to the museum, had never actually visited the site, he took him there on a trip. Later, he asked museum officials for a copy of his uncle’s recorded story.

“I was all choked up while watching it,” Sinise told Newsday in a phone interview. “It was very emotional … I called my friends at the museum and said everyone who is related to a World War II veteran should have a recording like this.”

The need is urgent as fewer than 500,000 World War II veterans are still alive, according to the foundation. Jack Sinise died in 2014 at the age of 90.

Sinise’s foundation has partnered with the museum and American Airlines to have more than 1,100 veterans and their guardians participate in Soaring Valor. They are even accommodating those who cannot physically make the trip.

“We are losing them so rapidly, we are sending crews all over the country to do these recordings,” said Sinise, whose iconic portrayal of Lt. Dan, a Vietnam War veteran in the film "Forrest Gump," led to an Academy Award nomination. “We need to get every World War II veteran and a family member to the museum while we still have the chance.”

Critelli was trained to repair and maintain planes used for observation. Then came the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, as German forces broke through the Allied line in the Ardennes region of Belgium and France.

“It was a very bad battle,” he said. “All of the soldiers were in foxholes. They didn’t have any bullets, they didn’t have nothing to eat. They ran out of everything … The Germans had circled them.”

American commanders were determined to get the trapped soldiers food, medical supplies and ammunition. Critelli dropped supplies from the plane, as a pilot flew low. He made 14 dangerous trips, leading to him being awarded the Air Medal.

He recalled the grateful soldiers were especially happy to see cigarettes and even once a bottle of whisky. “Boy, they loved that,” Critelli remembered.

It wasn’t until after the flights were over he saw bullet holes in radios close to where he was sitting in the plane.

For the trip to New Orleans, Sinise said they decided to pair up students with the veterans.

“We thought it would be a great way for these students to get a firsthand look at the most significant event of the 20th century and how it affects them today,” he said.

“You walk through that museum with them and they tell you about what you are seeing because they lived it. There's no education anywhere that's better than that.”

One of those students is Sean Browne, a senior at Wantagh High School who is going on the upcoming trip.

“It is extremely grounding and eye-opening for students to be able to bond with veterans through a multiday trip like Soaring Valor, especially at a time where children today have been born over 70 years after World War II and forget the tremendous risk and extent to which these men and women protected our country by fighting overseas,” Browne told Newsday in an email.

Browne said his family’s strong military connections have made him eager to be part of the program. His grandfather Ronald Browne was a Marine, and his grandfather Frederick Lawrence Cates was a U.S. Navy Seabee constructing bridges across the Marshall Islands in the Pacific during World War II.

His great grandfather Frederick Clinton Cates served in the U.S. Army’s field artillery in World War I. 

“As time goes on, the war becomes farther and farther away, so I do know that this may be one of the last opportunities I have to speak with these incredible men and women and thank them for all that they did while also hearing their war stories and taking them around the museum, ” he said. 

Critelli said he appreciates being thanked for his service and believes all veterans deserve that honor.

“I think if any veteran was asked ‘Would you do it over again,’ he would say, ‘Yes,’” Critelli said. “If I could do more, I would do more for this country.”

By Lisa L. Colangelo

lisa.colangelo@newsday.com@lisalcolangelo

Lisa joined Newsday as a staff writer in 2019. She previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press covering politics, government and general assignment.