Oldster on Guadalcanal

When World War II came, Musician John Rossi of Methuen, Mass, was ready. In 1917 he had watched the boys march away; he had two small children and an obligation to stay home. But when the Massachusetts National Guard was called to Federal service this time, Rossi had 18 years of training behind him and was inducted as a technical sergeant. His children were grown and he was thrice a grandfather.

In due course Band Leader Rossi found himself in New Guinea, later on Guadalcanal, where he and his bandsmen made little music but had plenty of chance to get shot at while carrying stretchers and hauling supplies between foxholes. Sixty-year-old Sergeant Rossi stood up as well as any under the pounding, until a skin disease incapacitated him. Last week he was back in the States, leading Army band concerts between treatments at a North Carolina hospital.

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