Talk with a Legion Member of Laguna Beach Post 222 – George Ciampa

My name is George Ciampa. I’m a WWII veteran of five campaigns in France, Belgium, and Germany including the D-Day Invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. I am 97 years old.

I became a filmmaker at age eighty-one and have produced and directed six documentaries over thirteen years–three in France, two in Belgium, and one in Germany.

Website: www.letfreedomringforall.org

The High Price of Freedom is my mantra. I speak in schools on this subject, here at home, in France, Belgium, and in the Netherlands.

I know the High Price of Freedom because I saw it everyday for eleven months, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge to the end of the war in Germany near Berlin. We gathered and buried the dead: 75,000 Americans and Germans. It was a very tough job for me. I was in the 607th Graves Registration Company.

I also served in the Army of Occupation of Germany after the war for seven months until my discharge in January 1946.

Last year I self-published a book including my Army Memoirs that was written in 1950–a few years after my discharge. It is called “Silent Dog-Tags”. I served in the 607th Graves Registration Company and our company had the solemn task of gathering and burying our dead in seventeen temporary cemeteries throughout France, Belgium, and Germany. We buried Germans in separate cemeteries. I was eighteen years old, one hundred twelve pounds, and had an unusual fear of death at the age of five.

At eighteen years of age I tried to enlist in the AirCorps. Because my vision was not perfect, I was not accepted. After being drafted in the Army, the eye requirements for the AirCorps were changed to 20-30 (no glasses). I applied, passed, and my company commander would not let me go. He transferred me into another Graves Registration Company going overseas immediately, short one man. I was that replacement. My former company was the 610th Graves Registration Co.

Recently, I have started a Podcast.

My experience of producing documentaries allows me to do most of my podcasts with adopters of American soldiers’ graves (Honor Guardians, as I call them). I know hundreds of these people. Just in my one documentary alone, “They Will Never Forget” you will see people who have adopted graves. Many have met with relatives of these soldiers (heroes). My podcasts will salute those adopters for their dedicated remembrance of American soldiers they never knew except as their liberators, many shown with family members who were previously connected.

Other podcasts will be with notables, who have amazing stories, many are veterans.