Tony Bennett, who died on July 21, 2023, at 96, was a WWII veteran.

Tony Bennett, who died on July 21, 2023, at 96, was a WWII veteran.


 Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on August 3, 1926, in New York City, he was drafted into the U.S. Army in Nov. 1944 during the final stages of WWII. 

In Jan. 1945, Benedetto was assigned as a replacement infantryman to the 255th Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division, a unit filling in for the heavy losses suffered in the Battle of the Bulge. 

He moved across France and later into Germany. In March 1945, he joined the front line of what he would later describe as a "front-row seat in hell.

 He and about 1,000 other troops were later taken off the front lines to watch  Bob Hope perform at a USO show. 

All the GIs loved him so much for boosting our dismally low morale," Bennett wrote. 

He became a big part of the reason I went into show business because, at that moment, he made me realize that the greatest gift you can give anyone is a laugh or a song."

Towards the end of the war, he was involved in the liberation of the Kaufering concentration camp, a subcamp of Dachau.
 
Since Bennett had only served for four months in the war, he had to stay with the occupying forces when the war ended. 

He was transferred to a Special Services unit to entertain the remaining Allied soldiers and began singing with the 314th Army Special Services Band under the name Joe Bari. 

During this time, he was demoted and assigned to grave-digging duty for having Thanksgiving dinner with a Black soldier, a friend of his from school. 

At the time, the armed forces were segregated by race. 

Bennett said that his experience with racial segregation in the military drove him to become a civil rights activist who marched with  Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma.

A week after Bennett was demoted, a colonel learned about the incident and sent him to an orchestra, where he continued performing as Joe Bari. 

After the war, Bennett would again encounter Bob Hope, who gave him the stage name Tony Bennett.

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