Michael Yovino

After the War

When we got to San Francisco I had about two weeks before I could go back home and get discharged. Some of the boys and I were on liberty in Frisco. We landed in an Italian neighborhood that had old fashioned push cart vendors selling things in the street. There were four or five of us guys.  We noticed people were selling all kinds of things on the street.  We saw big sized watermelons and a friend of mine looked at me and said, “Mike you are Italian what do you say?” And I said, “Lets get one.” Here we are in our white uniforms and we pay what I think was one dollar for a big watermelon.  But then where were we going to eat it?  We just sat down right on the curb. We took it, broke it, and we sat there and ate it like a bunch of kids. What happened after that?  A shore patrol guy, an officer came up and he said, “Guys do you know what you are doing?” We told him that we were eating watermelon and asked what did he want from us. He said, “Look at the scene you are making, everybody is looking at you.”  He said, “Don’t say anything because we know you guys just came back from the Pacific, but let’s make this quiet and appease everybody and get in the paddy wagon.”  And we went to military jail, believe it or not. They kept us there for about 3 hours to cool off and I’ll never forget it.  After that I got my orders to get discharged and was able to get back to the northeast.

After I was discharged I couldn’t wait to get onto the train. It would take me about an hour to get home back to Brooklyn from where I got discharged.  My wife was waiting for me at the subway when I got there. It was only about a block away from where they lived.  That was the start of a new life for me. There was no way to explain it when I got off of the train and saw her waiting for me.  When I got back I was in the same shoes as a lot of guys returning from the service: I had no job and no trade. Through a connection I had I got a job in a factory making eight dollars a week.  It wasn’t much, but it was a start.  I was at the factory for about eight years before going back into the Navy.  I would end up putting 24 years into the Navy.  I was a Drug Abuse Specialist in the Navy for awhile, and then later in my career I talked to some of my higher ups to figure out a way to go to Naples, where I was born. They did that for me and ended up stationing me there for four years. My wife and I had a baby boy there. My wife and I had a very good life after I went back into the Navy. We had two children and I kept going up in grades in the Navy. When I made Chief it was a big honor. Eventually I made E8. And then I said that is enough and retired as an E8. 

My wife Florence passed away 12 years ago.  The good Lord knows what he is doing. She became a diabetic way back and for about 10 years the pills were working fine and it was under control.  However, after that she progressively got worse and eventually she had to take insulin. And believe me it hurt me when I had to give her insulin in her back because her body was so full of holes. She used to give it to herself in the front of her legs and all that, but after awhile she just couldn’t do it anymore and I had to do some of her injections for her.  Eventually she got really sick and I had to take her to Memorial Hospital.  She was there for about seven or eight day, and eventually the doctor said there is nothing else that we can do.  At that point her sugar was over 300.  And then one day she said, “Mike I can’t take it anymore, tell them to take the plug out.”  I didn’t want to do it, but she said, “Mike, please, I beg you, I can’t do it anymore, I’m suffering too much.”  When she passed away even the nurses were crying and saying what a shame it was.  She passed away 12 years ago my friend, and she was a good woman.  When we were young and were going out, someone else wanted to go out with her as well. He was a good looking Pollock boy, he put this little guinea walk to shame. I was a runt, and he was a good looking guy.  She chased him off, not because I told her to, but as she later told me that she had told him she wasn’t interested and that she wanted to go out with me.