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By Mark Owen, Kevin Maurer

By Nancy Wake

Message: <blockquote data-quote="T LLoyd" data-source="post: 62887" data-attributes="member: 39120">Hello, I am the great grandnephew of 1 LT Albert "Val"  Valentinelli. Thank you for posting this. He was born in 1913 and was an NCO at the start of WW II and having been an infantry trainer and advisor in China prior to Pearl Harbor, he was stuck at the Infantry School at Ft. Benning. As a wily NCO, so the family story goes, he became aware that his ticket to the war was to go to OCS & volunteer for the Airborne. We know he jumped during D-Day and Market Garden (where he was wounded) but are not sure if he was in Sicily or Italy prior. One of his younger troops contacted my aunt in the 1990s, and one of the take aways was he really did not like to jump, so he made sure he had one of two young hot shots who liked jumping always behind him in the stick with standing orders that if he hesitated, shove him out the door. At the time of his death, he was the Heavy Weapons platoon commander and was out checking on his guys when air burst artillery brought down large tree debris on him. There is a Belgian family that tends his grave, and one on the sons later became a Belgian Army paratrooper. I was career Air Force and another of his grandnephews, my cousin Cullen, is a carrier qualified naval aviator and Reserve officer. I know we have both carried our granduncle's sprit with us during our military service. God bless you all!Terrance (Terry) Albert LLoyd</blockquote>