A Valentine’s Day love story. Remembering Antonio Puchalski (1923-2006) and Sgt. Gordy Carson (1924-1998).
A Valentine’s Day love story. Remembering Antonio Puchalski (1923-2006) and Sgt. Gordy Carson (1924-1998). Stephen Ambrose described her at the end of his book Band of Brothers with one simple line: “Carson fed an educated, beautiful, sophisticated Polish blonde.” Friends called her Toni. She was a blue-eyed dynamo who became a wife, widow, smuggler, slave, mother and killer—all before she turned 23. Toni’s father and older brother were part of the Polish army. They’d survived the initial invasion by the Nazis but were murdered by the Russians. Toni wed a Polish army officer when she was 18. They had a baby named Richard. Toni’s husband soon died in the war. Toni joined the Polish resistance, smuggling bread to Polish fighters at night. She came home one day and discovered that her mother and baby had been picked up by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. There was nothing anybody could do. Toni continued her work with the resistance. She and another fighter killed a ...