Rich McCune

Penn State linebacker was drafted into the Marines.

By Matthew Fleishman, BucksLocalNews.com


Rich McCune was on the fast track to becoming a middle linebacker for Joe Paterno’s Penn State Nittany Lions when his birthday was selected seventh in the Vietnam War draft lottery in November 1969.

“I was red-shirted that season, but when my birthday was selected, me and a million other guys were drafted, and I wound up in the United States Marine Corps as a teenager,” said McCune. “I spent 20 years in the military, but honest to God, I wish I could have played football for Joe Pa.”

However, because McCune’s brother was sent to Vietnam just before he was set for deployment, McCune did not go to Vietnam. Instead, he spent the next four years in the Marines, serving in Guam, Japan, Guantanamo Bay, and in the Mediterranean Sea.

“They had the Marines ready should we have been needed in the Middle East because of the escalating tensions at the time,” said McCune.

After four years in the Marines, McCune finished college through the G.I. Bill in 1976, and then because there were no jobs available at the time, he spent 16 years as an officer in the Army, retiring with the rank of Captain.

“I saw a billboard with the pictures of a sergeant, a college graduate in a cap and gown, and then a military officer, so I went back into the military,” said McCune.

For his first assignment, McCune was a field artillery officer along the border between West Germany and East Germany, and at times, stood 10 yards from soldiers on the other side of the border.

“It was very tense,” said McCune. “You never knew if war was going to break out. They were staring at you and you were staring at them. They would taunt you and point their tanks at you. You always wondered if they were going to start shooting.”

While in Germany, McCune held the title of Nuclear Surety Officer, which meant that he had the security codes for the nuclear weapons in the region.

“If the order came, I would have been the guy who pushed the button,” said McCune.
After Germany, McCune was sent to South Korea, where he says that people don’t realize it, but the war still was going on, even the 1980s.

“I was in charge of sniper teams, and we would sometimes capture North Korean spies with pictures of our entire encampment,” said McCune.

While McCune is proud of his 20 years of service in the military, he prides himself on his work as the service officer for VFW Post 6393, which enables him to help veterans of all ages receive the benefits and medical attention that they have earned.

“I work with them one-on-one, take them to Philadelphia, and then to the hospital to make sure they know what they should do and what they are entitled to,” said McCune. “The work I do as service officer is where I pride myself. I would say that nine times out of ten, veterans don’t know about what benefits they are entitled to receive, but I get them set up in the system.”

McCune said that it is not always easy to get veterans into the system because of how some have been treated upon returning home from serving overseas.

“I see a lot of Vietnam veterans who were mistreated and don’t want anything to do with the system,” said McCune. “I earn their respect and get many to come back into the system to get the care and treatments they deserve and are entitled to receive.”

While McCune spent 20 years in the military, and continues working with veterans, his son is following in his footsteps. Matthew McCune proudly serves his country, and on Oct. 27, was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. Matthew served in both Iraq and Afghanistan doing refueling missions. After his promotion, Matthew was given orders to attend Flight School, with the intentions of flying a KC-10 jet after two years of training.

Rich McCune currently lives in Langhorne, and is the junior vice commander for VFW Post 6393, and also serves as district officer in District 8.

Al Cordisco

Bristolian was a hero for his country and his community.

By Tim Chicirda, BucksLocalNews.com


Not only is Alfred (Al) Cordisco a member of the Bristol High School Class of 1940, but Air Force Staff Sergeant Al Cordisco has served for this country, while serving his community as part of a plethora of different organizations.

Cordisco is a 6-year member of the Robert W. Bracken Post No. 382. In fact, he has committed a total of almost 20 years, including his tenure in the National American Legion Organization.
The Robert W. Bracken Post, No. 382, formed September 28, 1919 with 62 ex-servicemen members, is a supportive group, a social club and a type of extended family for former service men and women.

In addition to organizing commemorative events, such as Flag Day, and marching in the Borough parades, manning a booth on Bristol Day and other volunteer activities, Legion members are active in U.S. politics.

The primary political activity is lobbying for the interests of veterans, including support for veterans benefits such as pensions and the Veterans Affairs hospital system.

One of the signers of the original charter was 1922-23 Commander/ Finance Officer, Jacob C. Schmidt, Jr., the grandfather of Horace P. Schmidt, Jr., owner of Schmidt’s Flowers. Also, Al's late cousin, Vincent Cordisco, directed the Bracken Cavaliers from 1944 to 1946.

Meanwhile, the American Legion was chartered by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic, mutual-help, wartime veterans’ organization.

Cordisco was born the fourth of six children, raised on Lincoln Avenue by his parents from Italy. Father John, a carpenter, married mother Assunta Pascuillo.

Al retired as a mechanic who possessed many skills in technical, electrical and electronic areas.
Cordisco and his late wife, Tullytown resident, Frances (Cuchineal) worked together at Keystone / Kaiser. Their courtship began after meeting at a Fifth Ward dance.

Al had another special bond with the Fifth Ward, as he held terms as both President and Secretary. He also co-founded the club in 1937.

(It merged with the Italian Mutual Aid in 1954 and is now know as the Italian Mutual Aid-5th Ward Association.)

Despite Al's many pre- and post-war accomplishments, one of his greatest life moments came while in the Air Force in the 1940s as the right waist gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress, the “Feather Merchant,” with a .50 caliber machine gun.

Waist gunners held a very difficult position in the Air Force, as waist windows on the B-17 were open to a 200 m.p.h. and -50 degree slipstream of air. Exposure to this extreme cold for even a few seconds could leave one with a mild frostbite and this cold would also cause ice to form in the oxygen masks of the gunners.

Depsite these difficulties, Staff Sergeant Cordisco was credited with destroying enemy aircraft over Augsburg, Germany. He was awarded an Air Medal with four oak leaf clusters and a Distinguished Flying Cross by General Ira Clarence Eaker of the 8th Air Force High Command, for heroism and extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight.

During Cordisco's European Theatre of Operations duty, he was based in Rattlesden, England in the 8th Air Force and flew missions over Germany and France. Here, he partook in a raid over Berlin’s military and industrial targets on March 6, 1944.

According to Al, “I just did what I had to do.” Flight crews had a set number of missions, usually a tour of 30. Al is one of the fortunate 447th Bomb Group, self proclaimed “Lucky Bastards Club,” who rallied forward and returned no less than those 30 times.

But, like so many veterans, Al unsentimentally ventured back to his life after the war, marrying and raising a son, the late BHS grad, Michael Alfred. He also raised a daughter, Wal-Mart employee, Patricia Kervick, who has a son, BHS grad, Michael who currently resides with him.
He is also a member of the Knights of Columbus Council #906.

Al also served as Sixth Ward (East Ward) Borough Councilman from 1956 to 1963. He has been a Democratic Committee Person for the past 25 years and has held Chairman positions on both the Police and the Street and Highway Committees.

Al Cordisco is truly a Bristol Borough legend, devoting his entire life to his country and to his community.

--
Cate Murway contributed to this article.

Gene Lioy

“Flying Fortress” gunner recalls harrowing missions.

By Jeff Werner, BucksLocalNews.com

At the age of 84, Bucks County veteran Gene Lioy still shudders when he recalls his harrowing missions over Germany, France, Belgium, and the Balkans during World War II.It was D-Day plus one when then 19-year-old Lioy took off in a B-17 from an airbase in England on the first of what would be about 30 bombing runs between 1943 and 1945.

Their mission was to bomb out ahead of the troops as they swarmed across the French countryside.But his first flight with the 544th Bomb Squadron of the 384th Bomb Group never made it to its destination. Lioy and his crew were forced to turn back when two of the plane’s engines failed.

The plane barely made it home, dumping its bombs into the English Channel before setting back down in England.Subsequent missions into an almost endless barrage of flak would change Lioy’s life forever. Up until that moment he felt invincible.

That changed when the realization of war came rushing home, stealing his youthful innocence away.“It was horrifying,” he said. “I was scared. We all were. I saw planes in front of me blow up with friends aboard. They were gone in an instant -- that’s all, that was it. The flak was exploding all around you. And you never knew if you’d be next.”

As the top turret gunner, Lioy had an almost unobstructed view of the sky, as German Focke-Wulfs and Messerschmitts flew around the aircraft with one mission in mind - to shoot he and his crew from the sky.

Just a year earlier Lioy had been a high school student in the western Pennsylvania town of Altoona, more concerned about girls and teen life than being killed. He graduated from high school in June 1942 at the age of 18. Six months later he was drafted into the service of a nation at war.

The day he left home was emotional. His mother was in tears as her second son prepared to leave for war.

“I will never forget that,” Lioy said. “My mother and grandmother were sitting in the kitchen and there I was - I was going away to war,” he said. “I can still see them crying. It was hard for them to take that. It was hard for me.”

When Lioy entered the service, he was assigned to the air force. For about a year he trained as an airplane mechanic, attending engineering school in Oklahoma and working briefly at a Boeing Aircraft plant where he learned about engines and how they’re put together.

“The next thing I knew, no more mechanic,” said Lioy. “They needed air crew. So there I go - over to Las Vegas where I learned air gunnery. The next thing you know I’m in Oklahoma again where I trained with the crew.”

From Oklahoma, the crew flew to Georgia to pick up a new plane. After a one-day stop over in New Foundland, they were bound for England and the war.

“We were having a good time,” recalled Lioy of those training and pre-war days. “In our minds we never thought of what it could be like. Now when I think of what we did, I’m really scared. But back then you weren’t. You just did what they told you to do,” he said.

Lioy and his crew flew campaigns over Normandy, Northern France, the Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central Europe, dropping bombs on strategic targets -- submarine pens, oil fields, cities, and factories. Their longest mission was to the Balkans, near the Russian border, where they dropped a load of bombs on oil refineries.

Lioy credits the B-17, affectionately known as the Flying Fortress, with saving his life on more than one occasion.

“That was the best plane they ever built,” he said. “The fire power of it was great. It was protected all over, better than the B-24.”

Following Germany’s surrender, the B-17s were transformed into transport planes and Lioy, then stationed in France, helped fly troops home from Germany.

“We took all the guns and bombs out of our planes and it became a troop transport,” said Lioy. “We brought the boys out and dropped them in Marseilles. That was my job until I got out.”

During those transport missions, Lioy saw the damage wrought by the allied bombing campaigns.

“I can never forget Leipzig - just totaled. All you could see was rubble all over,” he said. “It’s a shame we had to go over there and do that. But if we hadn’t of stopped Hitler at that point, the world would be in a very different position today,” said Lioy.

For his participation in World War II, Lioy received the Air Force Medal with two clusters, Good Conduct Medal, America Theatre Service Medal, European, African and Middle Eastern Service Medal and five Bronze Stars.

Following the war, Lioy met and then married his wife of nearly 60 years, Henrietta, in 1951. They made their home in Clifton, N.J., for 32 years, raising two daughters, Janet Lioy, of Upper Makefield, a physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Linda, a Registered Nurse from Wayne, N.J. Ten years ago, the couple retired to Buckingham Springs.

“At first I never thought too much of it,” said Henrietta, of her husband’s service. “The older I got the more I realized what he went through. And it was hell. “Communism under Hitler’s regime? It would have been horrible,” she continued. “Our life would have been horrible. My husband and the men and women who went over there fought for our freedom and made the ultimate sacrifice. How can we ever thank them?”