by Ted Sherman

Created on: July 13, 2009

Linda Marinelli was born on the 4th of July, and for many years as a child she thought all the hoopla and fireworks were celebrated specifically to mark her birthday. And why not? She was an Army brat, through and through, and patriotism was in her blood.

Born just a few minutes after midnight, Linda first opened her baby brown eyes in the maternity ward of Walter Reed Army Hospital. The first time she could focus them, the nurse brought her to the window at dawn so the baby could see the soldiers raise the American flag, and off across the park, the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln Monuments.

When her Dad wheeled her outside for Linda's first afternoon in the sun, she saw companies of uniformed men and women marching by, and heard military bands blaring out Sousa marches. As a girl, she was educated in Army schools at bases that ranged from Washington, D.C. to Germany to Japan to Fort Dix. Part of her Army indoctrination, from as long as she could remember, was her family military history.

Her dad, Anthony Marinelli, was a career Army officer, and granddad Guido a retired Army colonel. The older Marinelli had been a buck sergeant until he won the Congressional Medal of Honor and field commission at Anzio in 1944. That's what got his son, Tony, a West Point appointment. Linda grew up in a string of Army officer's quarters in buildings full of flags, medals, campaign ribbons and photos of GIs on the walls. Especially one of Sergeant Guido Marinelli getting the top medal from none other than President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself in September 1944.

Before the family Army traditions, Linda knew that previous generations of the Marinellis left Sicily in 1904 and landed at Ellis Island with thousands of other immigrants. She had been told the family ran a fruit and produce business on Canal Street in Manhattan's Little Italy for 40 years.

Granddad Guido was the first Marinelli to graduate from high school, and the first to speak English without an old-world accent. He also spoke fluent New York street-corner Italian, and it helped him earn his medal at Anzio, when Sergeant Guido Marinelli personally knocked out four German machine gun nests, and then convinced a whole division of Italian soldiers to surrender to the GIs.

Although Linda bounced around three different high schools because of her dad's Army assignments, she did well enough to earn five scholarship offers from various colleges around the U.S. However, just as she was about to accept one from Harvard,

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