Having lived through the Nazi occupation of Italy during World War II as a child, Edward Pasquesi helped keep the North Koreans on the far side of the 38th Parallel after the Korean War. The middle of three children, Edward Pasquesi was born in Bomporto, Italy, to Angelo and Antonietta Santi Pasquesi.

His parents had been working on a farm in the Modena valley and returned to Cadagnolo, their family village in the Apennine Mountains, when Pasquesi was 4 or 5 years old. “We were poor, but we really didn’t know it,” he says. Pasquesi lived among relatives from both sides of the family. He has vivid wartime memories of when the Germans occupied Cadagnolo and lived in their houses.