This story is a part of Aging Matters, a series from Colorado Matters about the Centennial State's aging population. Read more stories here.
Howard Berger may be among the most social 101-year-olds around. He relishes going out to lunch with family and friends and enjoys visitors, including his mail carrier, who he’s instructed to come inside to deliver the mail, since his legs don’t work like they used to. Berger occasionally longs for simpler times like his days growing up in New York City.
“People had open doors, you knock on a door, they'll open it or they'll leave it open,” said Berger.
Berger remembers the day he enlisted in the U.S. Army in New York. He was 18 and dreamed of serving his country and fighting the Nazis. He also remembers the high waves and cold weather as he crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth in December 1944 as a Staff Sergeant in charge of a platoon.
On his first day in England, the Germans dropped a bomb near his unit and terrified the young soldiers, but they were relatively unscathed.
“The day that we got to the English farm town, a V-2 rocket dropped nearby and we felt it. It scared the dickens out of us because that was our first day in England,” Berger said. “And the V-2 rocket is a German rocket that had no control, and they were just shooting it all over England.”
The unit also dodged enemy fire later in France and Germany, but Berger wouldn’t escape injury altogether. While occupying a German farmhouse, he was badly burned in a freak accident while trying to heat a tub of water and he was taken to a military tent hospital.
“They started working me over and they said, they're going to put me out … you won't feel the pain of us cleaning the sand out of your wound. Well, my left leg was black from the burn, and I figured they're going to cut it off, and I didn't want them to cut my leg off. I said, I'll hold on and I'll take the pain. And which I did.”
After recovering, Berger’s unit was sent to Austria to train for an invasion of Japan, but shortly after, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war ended. Berger prepared to head home, but before leaving, was offered a civilian job in the US Army in Austria and decided to stay. In Austria, Berger met his wife Dorothy, who trained as a Marine and worked for the State Department at the time.
The couple eventually moved to Italy, where Berger continued to serve until he retired after a total of 53 years in the military. The couple split their time between Naples, Florida and Colorado, where Dorothy grew up. Dorothy died about five years ago after 68 years of marriage.
Berger said he knows Dorothy is waiting for him at Fort Logan Cemetery. He said they had an agreement that if he died first, she could have a wonderful time and get remarried and the same applied to him.
“So now I'm having a good time. I go to Fort Logan, and I always tell her, ‘Wait a little longer for me. I'm having a wonderful time.’”
Earlier this year, Staff Sgt. Howard Berger was honored for his half century of military service by Douglas County commissioners and named the first inductee in the newly created Douglas County Hall of Fame.
Thanks to Carolina Skinner and Fiona Brainerd for their help with this story.
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