{"id":13042,"date":"2018-07-11T03:23:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T07:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=13042"},"modified":"2018-07-11T03:43:57","modified_gmt":"2018-07-11T07:43:57","slug":"not-bad-for-96-brick-veteran-honored-for-wwii-heroics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2018\/07\/not-bad-for-96-brick-veteran-honored-for-wwii-heroics\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Not Bad for 96:&#8217; Brick Veteran Honored for WWII Heroics"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"v-fHbP5Yzq-1\" class=\"video-player\"><iframe title='VideoPress Video Player' aria-label='VideoPress Video Player' width='1000' height='562' src='https:\/\/videopress.com\/embed\/fHbP5Yzq?hd=1&cover=1&loop=0&autoPlay=0&permalink=1&muted=0&controls=1&playsinline=0&useAverageColor=0&preloadContent=metadata' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen data-resize-to-parent=\"true\" allow='clipboard-write'><\/iframe><script src='https:\/\/s0.wp.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/video\/assets\/js\/next\/videopress-iframe.js'><\/script><\/div>\n<p>One day in May, a limousine rolled up to the clubhouse in Brick\u2019s Greenbriar development. The driver was there to take John Santillo, 96, to the French consulate in New York so he could receive an honor decades in the making \u2013 the Legion of Honour award, the nation\u2019s highest military honor.<\/p>\n<p>Santillo, who served in North Africa in the battle of\u00a0Kasserine Pass, also landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and crossed the Rhine, going door-to-door in German towns confiscating weapons that could be used against allied forces.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_13045\" style=\"width: 590px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.41-AM.png\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13045\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13045\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.41-AM.png\" alt=\"John Santillo's Legion of Honour award.\" width=\"580\" height=\"611\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.41-AM.png 580w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.41-AM-400x421.png 400w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.41-AM-399x420.png 399w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13045\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">John Santillo\u2019s Legion of Honour award.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Santillo is one of about 500 soldiers from the initial Normandy landing force still living, and in May was awarded\u00a0the Legion of Honor medal by the French government, the highest honorary distinction in France rewarding \u201ceminent merit rendered to the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was honored in his hometown of 24 years Tuesday night, when Brick Mayor John Ducey presented him with a key to the city and the township council voted unanimously to name a day in his honor and present him with a proclamation.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_13044\" style=\"width: 445px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.30-AM.png\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13044\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13044\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.30-AM.png\" alt=\"John Santillo, at age 22. (Credit: National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey)\" width=\"435\" height=\"609\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.30-AM.png 435w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.30-AM-400x560.png 400w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Screen-Shot-2018-07-11-at-3.19.30-AM-300x420.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 435px) 100vw, 435px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13044\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">John Santillo, at age 22. (Credit: National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A smiling Councilwoman Marianna Pontoriero told Santillo he had aged \u201clike a good bottle of wine\u201d after showing a photograph (also contained in this story) of Santillo at 22-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot bad for 22,\u201d Santillo said. \u201cBut not bad for 96 either,\u201d he added, before plenty of claps and cheers.<\/p>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nj.gov\/military\/museum\/summaries\/wwii\/john-santillo\/\">profile provided by the National Guard Museum of New Jersey<\/a>, Santillo first saw action when his\u00a0unit landed in Oran, Algeria to support operations around Casablanca before fighting in the battle of Kasserine Pass. In January 1944, the 237th Engineer Combat Battalion \u2013 of which Santillo was a member \u2013 was sent to England on what Santillo remembered as a rough journey on turbulent seas. The ship he and his fellow soldiers sailed on was sunk by a German U-boat on its way back to North Africa. Santillo was told at the time that an enemy submarine had stalked the transport on its way to England, but could not catch it, and had lain in wait to sink it on its return voyage.<\/p>\n<p>After arriving in England, Santillo began preparing for the D-Day invasion. After surviving Normandy, he faced gunfire from German troops and aerial bombardments against his positions. The Germans even bombed his unit on Christmas day, 1944, as he opened presents sent by his mother back home in Newark.<\/p>\n<p>Upon returning home, Santillo had to wait about a year before a job opened up at\u00a0Prudential Insurance Company, where he worked for 36 years before retiring. He moved to Brick 24 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was so flabergasted to get this award,\u201d Santillo said. \u201cI never had anything like this in my life. I guess God kept me alive during the war so I could have this day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m so grateful and thankful to all the veterans, our mayor and the council people here who honored me today,\u201d he continued. \u201cI\u2019m honored. God bless you all.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2018\/07\/not-bad-for-96-brick-veteran-honored-for-wwii-heroics\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One day in May, a limousine rolled up to the clubhouse in Brick\u2019s Greenbriar development. The driver was there to take John Santillo, 96, to the French consulate in New York so he could receive an honor decades in the making \u2013 the Legion of Honour award, the nation\u2019s highest military honor. Santillo, who served [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[24,695,3390,3391,807,694],"class_list":["post-13042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-france","tag-john-santillo","tag-legion-of-honor","tag-veterans","tag-world-war-ii"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/john_santillo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-3om","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}