Ecumen Changing Aging readers will recall the remarkable story of Don Singlestad, a resident of Ecumen-managed Heritage Community in Park Rapids, who was honored last year for his WW II heroics by the Italian government.  Don died just prior to Thanksgiving.

Jeremy Olson of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote a beauitful obituary on Thanksgiving Day that highlights several of the key moments from Don’s life, a life that had a tremendous impact on many on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.  Following is Jerermy’s article.  Thank you, Don!

The blessed life of Don Singlestad ended last
week when the decorated World War II
veteran and Minnesota National Guardsman
died at age 93.

A man who rarely discussed the war until he
wrote a 2009 memoir, "The Fighting Fool,"
Singlestad was one of the U.S. military’s most
decorated noncommissioned officers and
one of three Americans in the war to earn the
Italian Military Medal of Valor Gold Cross.

Singlestad expected to die on the battlefields
of North Africa or Italy, said his nephew,
Bruce M. Johnson. "There was no fear and
when things got very difficult, he just went
into instinct. And instinct worked. He lived
through it. He didn’t think he would."

Singlestad earned the Distinguished Service
Cross for heroism during a 1944 battle in
Italy. The citation said he used grenades and,
when out of ammo, his rifle butt to break
through an enemy blockade and bring
intelligence to his commanders.

A Lutheran, he later was blessed by Pope Pius
XII for working behind enemy lines before
the liberation of Rome to direct air and
artillery bombardments away from the
Vatican and other sites.

Singlestad was part of the National Guard’s
Red Bull 34th Infantry Division, which
suffered heavy losses in a pivotal battle to
drive Germans from mountain strongholds in
northern Italy. Last year, at 92, he traveled to
Vernio, Italy, to commemorate a highway in
the division’s honor.

"Don beamed with pride as he unveiled a
marker in front of townspeople and Italian
World War II partisans dedicating a mountain
pass as ‘Via 34th Divisione di fanteria Red
Bull,’ " said Maj. Gen. Rick Nash, adjutant
general of the state National Guard.

After the war, Singlestad was a traveling
salesman for a clothing company and opened
a diner in Litchfield, Minn., with his wife,
Florence. They later owned a girls’ clothing
store in Bloomington and sold real estate in
Arizona. The couple retired in Fort Collins, Colo.
Singlestad moved to Park Rapids, Minn.,
to be near his daughter after his wife’s death

He struggled with memories of the war and
men he killed. His daughter, Debra Sharkey,
said it showed in his wanderlust.

"That’s why he was on the road as a
salesman," she said. "He had to be out, he
had to be about. He had to be active."

Singlestad lived with zeal and a twinkle in his
eye, relatives said. He once rigged a bathtub
on a motorized raft so he could putter
around the lake, singing in the tub. "When he
was around … people laughed," Johnson said.

Singlestad was active in retirement, planning
a veterans’ memorial in Park Rapids, serving
Thanksgiving meals to the needy. Just this
month, he drove elderly voters to the polls.