Family Roots
During the campaign through Italy, Frank Palilla had an enviable advantage. He spoke fluent Italian. Getting along easily with the natives, he was well supplied with fresh eggs, bread, and other food items. He also had a full canteen of wine most of the time. He shared all this bounty with his comrades, who repaid the favor by keeping him as safe as possible.
The highlight of his military service came when his unit was in a holding area near Bologna, and he was able to hitch a plane ride to Sicily. There he was able to visit Naro, the small Sicilian town where his parents grew up:
When I announced myself at the barbershop in the piazza the entire town turned out in minutes for a fantastic welcome. It was nothing but overwhelming festivity from there on. We stayed with my mother’s identical twin sister for the five days that we were there. The most emotional moments came when I visited the homes in which my parents had lived. In particular, in my father’s case not only was I in the room in which he was born, but I was in the presence of the very bed in which he was born. I experienced an unbelievable and everlastingly memorable emotion.226
This story is a great testament to the strength of family bonds that transcend time, distance, and even war. God ordained the importance of marriage and made family the foundational unit of society. He exhorted us to “ Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters”(Jeremiah 29:6). There are few activities more important to God than strengthening and sustaining the family unit.
[Jesus replied], “At the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
—Mark 10:69