Veterans Day: Honoring Heroes

In order to evade advancing Russian forces, the Nazis in 1944 forced some 9,000 American prisoners of war to march hundreds of miles over several months. It became known as "the death march" because so many of the POWs died.

As the United States honors its military veterans Saturday, two men who survived the "the death march" told their extraordinary story to the CBS News Early Show.

American GIs Sal Cestaro and Aldo Girasole met on a roadside in Germany 56 years ago.

"In March [of 1944], we evacuated our camp and the Germans told us it would be for three or four days," Cestaro says. "It lasted over 87 days."

"After about three or four weeks of marching, I couldn't march anymore because my foot became inflamed due to a blister on the toe."

"I couldn't march anymore," he says.

Despite the possibility of death, Cestaro says the pain in his foot was too great to continue walking. He dropped out of the march and sat by the side of the road. As fellow soldiers continued past, Cestaro called out for help. But the haggard POWs ignored his pleas.

Except Aldo Girasole.

"I had passed many prisoners of war -- with the dysentery and the trench foot and whatnot -- dropping on the side of the road," says Girasole. But something about Cestaro made him stop.

"I saw this guy with his hand up in the air," Girasole says. "I had to do something."

For Cestaro, that moment changed his life.

"He walked up to me and said, 'What's wrong, pal?'" Cestaro says.

Then Girasole did something that he has difficulty explaining even today.

"I told him, 'Give me your hand,'" Girasole says. "I picked him up. I put him on my back and I started to carry him."

Bruised and broken, Cestaro couldn't believe what was happening.

"Four, five minutes after I carried him, I could feel the tenseness," says Girasole. "He's holding me so tight."

A short time later, Cestaro realized that he had found his deliverance in Girasole.

"He put his head down on my shoulder," Girasole says. "And tears came out. He was crying."

"I had to save him and me," he says. "I knew then that I had to stay with it."

Girasole carried Cestaro on his back for five days, until they reached a point of safety where sick and injured soldiers were being deposited. The Germans too had tired from walking, Girasole says, and began taking American POWs aboard horse-drawn flatbed wagons.

"I just couldn't make it anymore," he says. "I brought Sal over to one of the wagons."

"A German helped him on. I said good-bye," Girasole says.

The two GIs parted ways having spoken little over the five days they were together. They lost track of each other after the war. All that Cestaro knew about the man who had carried him to safety was that he was from Brooklyn. It would be 53 years before he could thank Girasole in person.
"I'm glad he picked me up," Cestaro says.

"I had to do something," Girasole says. "I had to do something."

©2000, CBS Worldwide Inc., All Rights Reserved