RAIMO, Augustino
US Army Private, 1st Class
Born February 14, 1896 Naples, Italy
Died – December 22, 1989, Brooklyn NY
Maternal Grandfather of Paula Wootton
My grandfather always told us stories at the conclusion of our
family’sholiday dinners. The entire family would be gathered
around either the kitchen or dining room table when he would
regale us with the stories of his life. He hated war and never said
or did anything to glorify it. As a result his stories about WWI were
few and far between. It was veryhard for my brother and me to
believe our grandfather was ever in the Army because he wasn’t
tough or ruff and hated all sports except for horse racing. He would
arrive for breakfast smelling of aftershave, wearing dress pants,
shirt, cuff links, diamond pinky ring, tie with tie tack in place. This
custom continued until his death! He never wore shorts or blue
jeans. He loved to play the violin, listened only to classical music,
and enjoyed art, museums and quiet solitude. Which meant my
brother and I couldn’t watch any of our TV programs while visiting
my maternal grandparents. He was always apart from other. He
believed in daily exercise, eating a healthy diet and taking vitamins. He always encouraged my brother and me to read, practice the piano and to express ourselves verbally or through some form of artwork. So it was near impossible for us to picture him as a soldier in the army. But he was drafted. So in 1917 at the age of twenty-one he and two of his friends were inducted into the US Army. There are photos of the three friends before and after training at Fort Dix and another photo of them waving goodbye from the deck of a large ocean liner heading off to serve in France. He loved France very much and vowed to return someday but sadly never did. He was wounded in 1918 when a bomb exploded while he was climbing out of a trench. He lost both the hearing in his left ear as well as part of his left pinky. I asked him what became of his two friends he replied. “One minute they were there and the next they were gone.” Other than that he spoke very little on the subject but where my grandfather’s words failed his WWI oil painting succeeded. Upon his return from a French field hospital he painted a scene reflecting trench warfare. It depicted soldiers wearing gas masks, in hand to hand combat, the suffering wounded among the bodies of the dead.
Everyone is engulfed in a midst of
confusion as dirt, exploding mortars,
smoke and gas billow up to the air.
The frenzied fighting is a stark contrast
to the quiet still of the barbed wire,
burnt trees and stark barren fields. One
definitely does not come away with a
sense of glory. Every year following his
WWI oil painting my grandfather would
paint a picture. This tradition continued
until his death in 1989 but scenes of war
or warfare never again appeared in any
part as the subject of his artwork. His
WWI oil painting now resides in my
brother’s study, a retired Lieutenant
Colonel in the US Marine Corp.
Submitted by Paula Wootton May 9, 2014