In happier times, Thanksgiving, 2010 at my house: Clockwise from left, my cousin Maryanne (Lou’s daughter), my brother Chuck, Uncle Lou, me, and Auntie Del (Lou’s wife).

My uncle on my mother’s side, Louis Squeglia, passed away on Tuesday, May 21, 2019. He was 95. I was tasked with writing the eulogy and thought I’d post it here.

Five-star General Douglas MacArthur, who played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II, once said that “the best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.” Louis Squeglia was a fine example of the truth in these words, and they were what he lived by: he considered himself a lucky man, and he wasted no time reveling in it.

Like MacArthur, Lou served in the U. S. Army in New Guinea from 1943 to 1946 as a Radar Crewman. His stationing there resulted in a connection to the Battle of Luzon, the initial conflict of MacArthur’s Philippine Campaign, which would eventually result in the liberation of the islands.

If you asked him what he thought of those trying years in the South Pacific, he’d tell you the reason he was losing his hair was because of the heat and his helmet.

“But I’m lucky,” he said, “that I didn’t lose more than that.”

In the next breath, he’d tell you Read the rest of this entry →