Cool guy with a secret past

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He was one of the coolest guys I have ever known, yet until this year I had no idea just how impressive he really was.

By the time you finish today's column, you'll understand why.

And why I'm thinking about him this weekend.

His name was Tom Pastorius. I was a kid sportswriter just getting started, more than 40 years ago, at a now-defunct newspaper in central Ohio; Tom was one of the stars of the staff.

He looked like Dean Martin -- acted a little like him, too. Totally unflappable, whimsy in his voice, a heartbreaker's hooded eyes: Tom was a man who made it seem that nothing could ever get to him. He had turned 50 during the summer I sat at the next desk.

An overly officious editor would bark at him? Tom shrugged it off. A young college athlete would treat him a little rudely? Didn't faze Tom.

The other star of the sports staff, and Tom's best friend in the newsroom, was Kaye Kessler. If Tom was Dean Martin, then Kaye was Frank Sinatra. Kess and Pasty -- that's what they were called, that's how they were known. And that's all I really knew about them. They didn't talk about their past history, and, as I recall, none of us really asked.

This year, I sought out Kaye Kessler again -- he's living in Colorado, long retired from daily newspaper work -- and I asked him about Pastorius, and he said that Tom had died more than 10 years ago.

I told him what a cool character I had always thought Tom was.

And Kessler said: "You know he parachuted into France for the D-Day invasion, don't you?"

I'd had no idea. Tom had never said a thing.

"He and his brother both," Kessler said.

The guy in the next seat on the sports desk, a paratrooper on the day of the Normandy invasion. And he had not mentioned a word about it.

There have been any number of emotional and stirring stories coming out of France this weekend as the world commemorates the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Yet there is one aspect of the anniversary that isn't often mentioned and that is worth thinking about:

We are accustomed to envisioning the Americans of D-Day either as the impossibly young men in vintage World War II photographs and newsreels, or as the elderly men, fewer and fewer in number now, who accept our humble thanks on weekends like this one, or, of course, as the unseen warriors who rest for eternity beneath those shattering rows of white crosses.

But there was a time in the life of the United States -- and that time is over now -- when it was accepted as a fact of daily life that the man across the aisle on the bus to work or the man sitting with his wife at the movie theater or the man riding the elevator on his way upstairs at the office just might be a hero of D-Day.

They walked among us for a very long time; the war ended, the world was saved, and they came home and blended into a nation at peace, and often there was no way for us to ever know. Not unless they told us, and many of them chose not to.

Kaye Kessler told me that Tom Pastorius' wife had died, and so had his son. But I made some calls and finally was able to find a very nice woman named Kathleen Pastorius, who is 88 and who is living in a senior community on the west coast of Florida. Kessler had said that both Tom and his brother had parachuted into France on D-Day. Kathleen Pastorius is the widow of that brother, whose name was Ed.

"Both boys were members of the 101st Airborne Division," she said. "They were very close all their lives. Ed was the older. They grew up in Canton, Ohio, and on the day of the Normandy invasion, they were both dropped in."

The men of the 101st Airborne parachuted behind enemy lines, behind Utah Beach; there was darkness and heavy fog and intense German anti-aircraft fire, and the casualties in the 101st were terrible. Each paratrooper wore more than 70 pounds of equipment. As they hit the ground -- the ones who hit the ground alive -- they had every right to wonder if they would ever see the United States again.

For the ones who did make it home -- as, eventually, the Pastorius brothers did -- the decision was: How do I want to live the rest of my life?

For many the answer was: Just live it, and don't endlessly talk about what came before.

It was little wonder that Tom seemed all but immune to being bothered by small vexations. A tedious assignment at work? A football game to cover in a blizzard? A late-night shift followed by an early-morning wakeup call?

Please. He had seen worse. He could always know: No one could throw anything at him as tough as what he, and the soldiers of D-Day with whom he had served, had seen when they were young.

They were constantly among us, once upon a time. They moved among us, and they elected to keep their pasts invisible.

They were, in every sense of the phrase, men among men.

Forever.

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深藏不露的汉子

他是我遇到的最酷的家伙之一，但是直到今年我才明白他是多么的令人难忘。

读完这篇故事，你也会明白。并且会了解为什么我会在这个周末想起他。

他叫汤姆帕斯托利斯。四十多年前，我刚参加工作，在俄亥俄中部一家现已不存在的报社做体育记者，稚嫩的很；汤姆则是同僚中的一位大明星。

我坐在他旁边的那个夏天，他刚50岁。他看起来像迪恩马丁，行动也有点像。镇定冷静，嗓音难以捉摸，一副断肠人的迷蒙眼神。看上去对全世界都无动于衷。事儿妈的编辑冲他大嚷大叫？他置若罔闻。年轻的大学运动对他粗鲁不恭？他总有办法搞定。

体育部的另一个明星，也是汤姆在编辑部最好的朋友是凯耶科斯勒。如果说汤姆是迪恩马丁，那么凯耶就是弗兰克辛屈纳。凯思与帕斯帝，我们都这样叫他们，他们也以此为人所知。我对他们的了解也仅限于此。他们从没谈过自己的过去，我们也没人问过。

凯耶科斯勒如今住在科罗拉多洲，已从报界退休多年。今年我再次去看他，问起帕斯托利斯，他跟我说汤姆已在十几年前去世了。

我告诉他在我心目中汤姆是个多么酷的人物。

“他曾经在诺曼底登陆日空降法国，你知道么？”科斯勒问问。

我不知道。汤姆从没说过。

“他们兄弟两个”。

那个就坐在我旁边的家伙，竟然是诺曼底登陆时的一个伞兵！而他一个字都没提过。

这个周末，全世界都在庆祝诺曼底登陆胜利65周年，无数煽情的故事又从法国传出。但是关于这种纪念，一个值得思考的方面，我们却常常忽略。

对于诺曼底登陆时的美国人，我们总是习惯于把他们想像成，要么是古老的二战照片或者新闻影片中很年轻的小伙子，要么是在这种周末接受我们谦恭感激的、正日渐逝去的老兵，要么就是那些躺在白色十字架下永远安息的无名英雄。

但是在美国人的生活中，有一个现在已经结束的时代。在那个时代，一个坐公车去上班的人，一个陪妻子看电影的人，一个乘电梯上办公室的人，很可能就是诺曼底登陆时的英雄，这种情况很司空见惯、很家常便饭。

他们一直生活在我们中间。战争结束了，世界被拯救了，他们回到家乡，在一个和平的国度里四散开来。除非他们讲出来，否则我们很难了解他们的经历。但是，他们大多选择沉默。

凯耶科斯勒说汤姆帕斯托利斯的妻子和儿子都已不在人世。而在几番电话的努力后，我终于找到一位非常和蔼的老太太，她叫凯瑟琳帕斯托利斯，88岁，住在佛罗里达州西海岸的一个高档社区里。凯瑟琳证实汤姆和他的哥哥都在诺曼底登陆时空降法国。哥哥命叫艾德，凯瑟琳正是他的遗孀。

凯瑟琳说，“他们兄弟俩都是101空降部队的成员。兄弟俩终生都非常亲密。艾德年龄大一点。他们一起在俄亥俄州的康顿长大，又在诺曼底登陆的那一天，一起跳了下去。”

101空降部队，每个人都背着超过70磅的装备，降落在犹他滩后面的敌人后方。漆黑，浓雾，加上德军密集的防空火力，他们伤亡惨重。当他们一落地，如果侥幸未死，就有充足的理由怀疑自己还能不能再看到美国的太阳。

而那些最终生还故乡的人，像帕斯托利斯兄弟，都面对着一个决定：我的余生该如何度过？

很多人的选择是：只管活着，不论过往。

这就不难理解，为什么汤姆总是不为生活中的烦心琐事所动。冗长乏味的工作安排？暴风雪中的足球比赛报道？晚夜班后又在凌晨被电话吵醒？这些算得了什么。

他见识过地狱。他心里清楚，任何挑战，都不及他和他那些诺曼底登陆时的战友，在年轻时所经历的那么严酷。

他们曾一直生活在我们中间，与我们朝夕相处，却把自己的过去深藏不露。

无论从何种意义，他们都是男人中的男人，汉子中的汉子。

永远都是。