“If Barney was in the room, you knew it. He lit it up,” Ed Reynolds, head of the veteran’s group Wings Over Wendy’s
He stood a shade over 5-feet-tall, but to those who knew World War II veteran Barney Leone he was a giant of a man — in war and in peace.
His passing in his sleep last week at age 99 hit the people who knew him hard.
The thought of never sitting down with Barney again and listening to his riveting stories, never hearing his laugh or seeing his smile brought tears that Barney would not have accepted.
Why cry when you can smile and laugh at all the good times we had, he would have said. Enjoy the memories.
“You could not help but love Barney,” said Maria Rodriguez, who spent every Monday morning for more than 15 years with him at Wings Over Wendy’s, a local veterans group where Barney held court.
“He was genuine and people loved that about him,” she said.
You’d find him most afternoons sitting in the front yard of his West Hills home singing along with arias from his favorite Italian operas, said neighbor Tom Thorley.
“He had a youthful spirit,” he said. “When we walked past, he’d turn off the music and regale us with jokes or stories about his past.”
Stories that Melissa Giller knew well. She interviewed dozens of World War II veterans for the “Secrets of World War II” exhibition in 2022 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, ultimately choosing six to be honored with special display cases. One of them was Barney.
“I will never forget his interview,” she said.
He was a 23-year-old motor machinist mate second class on the USS Nemasket, a fuel ship anchored 150 yards offshore of Iwo Jima — the last ship the Marines in landing crafts would see before hitting the beach.
As the first wave of Marines passed by, Barney gave them the high sign. Not one Marine looked over and acknowledged it. They just stared straight ahead, clutching their rifles straight up in front of their faces.
They knew…
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