RIP Tony Bennett, ...
He served with 63rd Infantry as it fought its way through France and Germany where, he said, he "had a front-row seat in hell". He was lucky to escape with his life on several occasions and took part in the liberation of a concentration camp.
The experience left him a pacifist, with a lifelong hatred of any form of conflict. "Every war is insane," he wrote, "no matter where it is or what it's about."
After hostilities ended, Bennett stayed in Germany as part of a unit to entertain the troops. But, having been spotted eating with a black high-school friend - in an era when the army was racially-segregated - he was reassigned to survey war graves.