By Bob Jannarone

As with all of us, one of our ancestors came to this country to look for a better life.  In my case, my grandfather came from Italy.  Ciriaco Iannarone came, looked around, and convinced his 6 brothers to come to the US.  That was in 1903 and he was 23 years old. They formed a construction company and settled in northern New Jersey.  One brother became a Catholic priest.  Anglicized to Charles Jannarone, (Ciriaco actually means Lord, and Italians have no J in their alphabet but write their script capital I like an English J), he married another Italian immigrant, Concetta Caruso, who came as a 10-year-old in 1900.  Both had been born in Ariano-Irpino, and lived in the tiny village of Medellin, in a very poor section of the country.  Married in Newark, NJ, in 1909, they settled in nearby Nutley.  They had three children by the time of the Spanish Flu in 1918, which took my grandfather’s life.  He had been in this country for only fifteen years.

     Widowed Concetta, called Connie, moved in with her three kids to her brother-in-law’s Rafaele (Ralph) and his wife’s house around the corner.  She worked as a seamstress and ran a dry goods store out of the house.  Her first son, Joseph, was dropped by a mid-wife at birth and was never able to work.

 My dad, John Jannarone, first worked as a waterboy for the construction company.  Esther married another Italian much later on.

     My dad was valedictorian of his high school class, Student Council President, and played football, basketball and baseball.  He applied four times to West Point.  But classes were smaller then, and the family had no money or political pull, so he was rebuffed by his local Congressman.  But that man was powerful, and on the fourth try he told a new Congressman from Delaware to nominate my dad, even though he wasn’t in his district.  He did.  That man served only one term.

     My dad graduated from West Point first in his class in General Order of Merit.  He was a Company Commander, Chairman of the Cadet Honor Committee, and Battalion Commander of the Catholic Squad.  He was asked by West Point to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship, but he was interested in civil engineering.  He was number one on the list of officers that General Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project, the Atomic Bomb project, asked the Army G-1 to have assigned to his headquarters when the war was over.  After that assignment, he taught physics at West Point, got a master’s degree in civil engineering, and ultimately went back to West Point as a full professor and ultimately the Dean of the Academic Board.

Cadet John Jannarone

     As a third generation American, I was taught the value of hard work, perseverance, thrift, honesty, and fear of the Lord.  My parents had weathered the Great Depression, dad paid much of his mother’s and brother’s bills and now were getting the thanks of the country for their selfless service, but not much pay.  All three of my father’s sons served in the military.  Jack, a USMA graduate, served more than twenty years in the Air Force.  I served five years active and twenty-eight more in the reserves.  Dick served over six years in the Army, and decades in foreign military sales of US aircraft. Dick and my sister, Dotty were high school valedictorians. (Who, What or Where? – 1972 – The Days Forward) My sister, Nancy, saved a young girl from drowning in Delafield Pond at West Point and is in the College Swimming Coaches all of Fame. (To see a photo of this special family go to: Combat Related Special Compensation – 2021 – The Days Forward)

     I was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers upon graduation from West Point and served in Vietnam with the Engineer Battalion of the 25th Infantry Division.  I ultimately served in the Army Reserve, assigned to an Engineer District and later at a Division.  Those have only a few officers and are mostly civilian workers.  Later, I was also one of those civilian workers, working on military construction projects at West Point.

     I was also attached to the Military Academy Liaison Officer program.  Formed because a recent class at West Point was not filled, and largely unpaid, reservists were tasked with generating interest in applying and guiding candidates through the admissions process.  I’m happy to say that the area where I was assigned, around Rochester, NY, generated at least four, and sometimes as many as nine admitted candidates each year.  Most graduated, and I think one reason was that I made sure they understood what they were getting themselves into as a cadet.

     After I retired, I taught religious education for the local parish for nine years before I moved from the West Point area to Pennsylvania.  I have been a lector since cadet days, and I am also now an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, bringing Eucharist to shut-ins at the Retirement Community where I live.

     I’m happy that my grandfather decided to come to America, and that his son and grandchildren made good use of the opportunities available. 

My first experience with Mike Krzyzewski was as a Company mate the first two years, before I was shuttled off to a new Company.  The first plebe year re-sectioning for English class was alphabetical by last name.  There were “J” and “K” names in my section.  The instructor wanted to make sure he said everyone’s name correctly, and when he came to Mike, he asked how to pronounce it.  After the instructor tried several times, he said, “I’ll just call you Mike,” and he did.

     My parents and younger brother and two sisters were avid Army sports fans, as was I.  My parents went to Mike’s wedding, and all of us followed his playing and coaching career both at WP and Duke.  I enjoyed watching him make 11 points in an Army-Navy game.  The best as a coach was the 104-103 Duke over Kentucky in overtime in 1992.

     In 1978, living near Rochester, NY where I worked, I was surprised to get a phone call from Mike. At that time, Mike was coach of the Army team. It was the opening game of the season, and Army was going to play the University of Rochester on their court.  Mike said he was sure we would win, anyway, “But, Bobby, can you get a scouting report for Rochester?  We don’t know anything about them.”  I said I would see what I could do.  That afternoon, scouting reports for all the local teams were in the afternoon paper, so I sent it to West Point.  Mike sent me a ticket and Army won by 20 points.  Mike spoke briefly to me and many local high school coaches he knew, too, as he walked to the locker room after the game.

     Years later, in the early 90s, Duke was playing in a tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York City.  I was working for West Point Admissions and was taking a plane to a Winter By-Invitation meeting in the mid-west.  Arriving at Newark Airport with plenty of time to spare, I strolled through the area.  At a gate that was otherwise unoccupied, there was Mike talking into a microphone, responding to questions for a weekly radio program called “This Week in the ACC.”  I sat way off to the side, and when the taping was over, Mike came over for a nice chat.   

by Bob Jannarone

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

     We lived in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York in 2001.  We had retired over a year before from our jobs at West Point and were looking forward to our first Elderhostel* program in about two weeks, in Philadelphia; and a tour of a riverboat that was to dock at West Point, thinking we might want to go on it sometime.

     Linda and I were having a leisurely breakfast, listening to a local radio station that had trivia questions for which I won a prize almost every month, when the phone rang.  It was our daughter Barbie, calling from the Rochester, New York area.  She told us that one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City had been hit by a plane.  So, we went to the den and turned on the TV.  Soon we saw that the second tower had been hit.  

     We knew that we were watching history in the making.  Soon I had several thoughts.  The first was that I had been there many times, taking the train from Salisbury Mills/Cornwall and then the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) train from Hoboken, New Jersey into the city one Friday every month and getting off at the World Trade Center stop.  From there, I went to 26 Broadway (the Federal Building) to my post as an Individual Mobilization Augmentee as an Army Reservist for the New York District, Army Corps of Engineers.  Later, I didn’t have to walk as far, as I was assigned to the North Atlantic Division Headquarters, just across the street north of the World Trade Center.  Sometimes I ate lunch in the Customs House cafeteria at 1 World Trade Center.

     My boss (another Army Reservist) at Division Headquarters had been scheduled to have his monthly duty there in 1993 when a bomb had been set off in the parking lot underneath the World Trade Center.  He had his plans changed the day before that.  He usually parked his car there, so he avoided that disaster.  I wondered if there had been some damage to the Post Office building where Division was housed at this time.  There was, it turned out.  Division moved to Fort Hamilton not long after that.

     My next thought was for my brother, Jack, a United Air Lines pilot.  I called many times, sometimes not getting through, sometimes with no answer.  It wasn’t until late the next day that he answered the phone by saying, “I’m home, I’m safe.” **

     My wife’s mother and her sister, who lived near us, had been visited by her cousin and his wife for the last several days.  We had the four over for dinner the night before.  The cousin was flying back to Atlanta that morning.  He saw that the first tower had been hit while on his way to Newark Airport.  When he found out that all flights were canceled, he had to rent a car and drive to Atlanta. 

     That night there was an impromptu gathering at St. Thomas Church.  It was packed just like Easter and Christmas.  Would that it always were so.  

     We knew that one of the Folk Group members worked at the World Trade Center.  On Sunday, we found out that he had car trouble on the 11th and didn’t go to work.  We also found out that a fireman who lived in Cornwall had died at one of the towers.  His funeral Mass was a St. Thomas, attended by at least a hundred firefighters in full regalia.  There is a memorial bench at the traffic circle in Cornwall, “Lest We Forget.”

     About ten days later, having had word from Eldershostel that the program would still take place, we took a train into New York.  When we got to the subway and Penn Station, we saw hundreds of missing persons signs plastered on every wall. 

We also saw Army National Guardsmen with rifles and Amtrak Police everywhere.   

     We took the train to Wilmington, Delaware, then a rental car to Ocean City, Maryland, where we stayed with one of Linda’s friends from her youth.  In those two cities, everything seemed to be business as usual.  

     At the Elderhostel program in Philadelphia a few days later, very few people had canceled.  When we got back to New York City, we tried to enter the subway, but people were streaming up the stairs.  There had been yet another bomb scare, as apparently there had been every day for three weeks.  There had also been bomb threats daily at the Empire State Building. 

     Soon after we got home, we got a call from the riverboat cruise line.  The ship was not going to be allowed to dock at West Point but would instead dock at Bear Mountain.  We went, and were very impressed, and now have cruised with them several times.

     Did we learn anything from September 11?  We have read several books by Jonathan Cahn, showing our relationship to ancient Israel, and how we, like they, have turned our back on God.  The events of September 11 are only a warning.  According to him, our leaders have only spoken of defiance.  But unless we repent and turn back to God, we will suffer the same fate.  

* Elderhostel was a low-cost educational program using college dorms for adults 55+.

** It turns out that Jack was on standby waiting to be called back to flying. As we know that call didn’t come for some days while aircraft was grounded around the country. Instead, Jack went up to the Air National Guard base at Stewart Field in Newburgh. It was a staging ground for emergency responders moving into the World Trade Center site. Jack asked what he could do to help; he was sent to the Mess Hall to peel apples for cobbler for lunch dessert and later worked in the serving line where he could talk to the first responders and even a Forest Service crew from Oregon there to help.