On a warm December day in 1944, 20-year-old Pat Guggio was walking on deck aboard the USS Liddle when the Navy destroyer suddenly began to shake violently. A Japanese Kamikaze pilot had just struck the ship, killing 38 seamen. Fortunately, Pat was not among them. But the collision destroyed the rudders, which steered the ship, and now they were stuck in the middle of the Philippine Sea (Pacific Ocean), still within enemy waters. They needed to get out of the area quickly—but how?
Thankfully, there was an alternative way to steer the ship using the propellers, a technique all first-class officers aboard the USS Liddle had been trained on and were expected to execute under such circumstances. However, there was a problem: every one of them refused to take on the responsibility. “If anything would happen, they would be held liable,” explains Pat, who is now 101 years old. “It meant their retirement.”
Pat, who is currently receiving hospice care through the Visiting Nurse Association (VNA), was a second-class officer at the time of the Kamikaze attack. Nevertheless, he stepped up to the task and attributes his engineering knowledge and confidence to his late mother. “She said, ‘Whenever you do something, learn everything you can,’” a sentiment Pat took to heart several months before setting foot on the USS Liddle, during his time at Navy boot camp in Illinois. During his training, he went beyond what was required, taking test after test, advancing, and—unwittingly—preparing himself for just such a crisis. “In my schooling in Great Lakes, Illinois, I learned that in that given situation, you can steer the ship with the propellers,” which Pat did, with the help of two fellow shipmates. “It was a fantastic experience to be able to have that camaraderie,” Pat recalls. “I still can picture it just like it was yesterday—walking down the corridor and taking control of the ship. And I was prepared, thanks to my mother, who always said, ‘Learn everything you can.’”
Pat often speaks lovingly of his mother, whose influence on his life remains profound. I had the privilege of learning about her during a special Italian lunch at his home, an event thoughtfully arranged by his VNA Hospice team as part of Project Wish, a compassionate program supported by the VNA & Hospice Foundation that grants meaningful wishes to patients nearing the end of life. The meal—featuring fresh, warm bread, a crisp salad, and pasta e fagioli, his favorite dish—was a heartfelt tribute to his heritage and service. The VNA recognizes the importance of honoring those who have made extraordinary contributions to the country. “We wanted to honor him for being a Veteran and for his heroic service,” explains Steffany Celento, his VNA Social Worker and a member of his hospice care team. “So, we asked if we could bring him a special lunch in his honor. Pasta e fagioli was his only request!”
According to Pat, his mother taught him many pearls of wisdom, which he says has everything to do with his reaching 101 years of age and positive outlook. “My mother always said, ‘If you have one best friend and have your healthy’—she said ‘healthy’ because she was from Sicily—‘you got everything you need in life.’ She was right, because, you know, your life depends on your buddies. Especially in war. They’ve got your back, and you’ve got theirs. And that’s what makes it tolerable; that’s what makes you able to keep going.”
Pat’s deep friendships with his fellow seamen lasted long after the war. Later in life, he and his wife, Christine, became close friends with a priest, Father Singleton, who hailed from Ireland and offered him great comfort after his mother passed away. “He would point to my shoulder and say, ‘Pat, she’s right here.’” Another great lesson Pat learned from his mother was street smarts, which served her well in helping the family survive the Great Depression. “She only had a third-grade education, but she was the wisest person I knew. She said, ‘You can learn more by observing and when you exert yourself without book knowledge, because book knowledge is going to be nothing except what you learn in the books—but actually doing something is when you learn life. That’s what will bring you forward,’” Pat recalls.
While Pat’s mother offered words of wisdom, it was his father—who also immigrated to the United States from Sicily (Pat made a point of saying his parents were Sicilian, not Italian: “There is a difference,” he quipped)—who taught him concrete skills, including home construction. While Pat’s friends spent their time after school playing, Pat helped his father build houses. As an adult, he appreciated what he learned, especially since it became his livelihood after the war and enabled him to provide for his wife and three children. But as a child, it was frustrating. “You can imagine a kid working year in, year out. I used to complain to my mother. I said, ‘I never have time to play with my friends. It's always about work, work, work.’ And she said, ‘Well, my son, you don't realize now how important it is that you learn a trade.’ The wisdom she had was unreal.”
During the summers, however, Pat’s mother recognized that her son needed a break. She came up with a plan that her husband couldn’t refuse. “She said, ‘Go to Sacred Heart Church and see Father Wyman. You’re going to be an altar boy, so you won’t have to work on Sundays.’ It was the only thing my father couldn’t say no to.”
Pat served as an altar boy throughout junior high and high school—an experience he admits could become repetitive but ultimately served him well. “Hearing all the sermons, I was listening. And it seemed to me I’d heard that sermon before, but they served as moral examples, and you have to learn by those; from them, you know what to do and what not to do.”
One thing Pat knew he did not want to do was kill anyone—something he learned from both his spirituality and hunting game with his father. That conviction was why he chose to join the Navy instead of the Army, where most hand-to-hand combat occurred. “I saw everything there was about hunting with my father. And when I first went to enlist, they wanted me in the Army to shoot to kill somebody. And what I’m thinking is, there’ll be this guy who’s probably got a wife and two or three kids, and if I pull the trigger, I’ll take him away from his family. So I said, ‘The Army is not for me.’”
Pat not only learned how to hunt and build homes from his father; he also learned to drive—though in a nontraditional manner, one difficult to imagine today. “One of my memories is from when I was 12 years old. It’s just as vivid as if it happened yesterday. I was standing in the back seat of the car while my dad was driving. I’m looking over his shoulder at what’s happening, and he says, ‘Why are you looking at everything I do?’ I said, ‘I want to learn how to drive,’ and he says, ‘OK—drive.’ So he puts pillows on the seat, and we switch places. And I’m 12 years old, driving stick shift, and he’s sleeping in the back seat. I see through the mirror his legs are crossed over, and he’s sleeping away. Looking back, it was something you felt you had to do. Would I do that today? Not in a million years. Still, it’s the fondest memory.”
