Greek-Americans also earned respect in WWII

[Kyt]

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mart...nclick_check=1

"Go tell the Spartans, you who pass by/That here, obedient to their laws, we lie."

-- King Leonidas of Sparta (who, along with his entire force of 300, died fighting to hold the pass at Thermopylae against an invading Persian army in 480 B.C.)

VETERANS DAY is Sunday, giving us one more chance to thank the G.I. generation that saved the world from Hitler.

Over the years, I've written about one group of veterans, the Japanese-American soldiers of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, who overcame racial prejudice at home to bring honor to themselves, their families and their country.

As the late Tad Masaoka of Menlo Park said to me, "We wanted to prove we were just as good Americans as anyone else." (In fact, they proved they were better.)

And they're not the only ones. Every minority group that served in World War II had to overcome discrimination. African-Americans are the most obvious example.

Another is the Greek-American commandos in the O.S.S., the forerunner of the CIA, who parachuted behind enemy lines in occupied Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia to direct the resistance movements in those countries.

"We had something to prove," said Andy Mousalimas of Oakland. "Before the war, we were second-class citizens. People called us 'greasers.' Our food, which people think of as gourmet food now, was just considered smelly. We had Easter on the 'wrong' date. We even crossed ourselves the 'wrong' way."

The commandos created somuch havoc, they pinned down 31 crack German divisions that otherwise would have been sent to France to stop the Allied invasion on D-Day.

According to the head of the O.S.S., "Wild Bill" Donovan, "Hitler rarely spent less than half an hour of his daily noon conference -- his main military conference of the day -- discussing these operations and their implications."

The result was the infamous Fuhrer Order No. 003830:

"From now on, all enemies on so-called Commando missions, even if they are soldiers in uniform, whether armed or unarmed, in battle or in flight, are to be slaughtered to the last man.

"Even if these individuals should apparently be prepared to give themselves up, no pardon is to be granted them. I will hold responsible under Military Law all commanders and officers who fail to carry out this order. Signed, Adolf Hitler."

The Germans didn't treat civilians any better, as the commandos discovered when they entered the town of Drama.

"The townspeople showed us a long covered trench," Mousalimas said. "Ten thousand Greeks were buried there. The Germans had lined them up and executed them to observe the anniversary of the day Greece refused to surrender to the Nazis."

Every commando had a price on his head: Anyone who turned him in would get his weight in gold -- no small matter in a country where the Germans were systematically starving the population. (An estimated 350,000 Greeks starved to death during the war.)

But no one ever turned them in.

"One time I was in a small village, hiding in the mayor's basement," Roger Antonopoulis of San Jose told me shortly before his death in 2003. "From all over the countryside, people were bringing their most valuable possessions to barter for food. One old woman traded all her diamonds for just a pound of corn. That's how much they were suffering. But would they turn us in? Never!"

These heroes bore the scars of their service for the rest of their lives. To this day, Mousalimas has severe hearing loss from an exploding German shell.

But they never received the recognition they deserve, and the reason was strictly political: Greece was officially in the British zone of influence, and it would have been embarrassing if word had gotten out that Yanks had fought there, too.

But speaking for the next generation of Americans, who are the beneficiaries of their sacrifice, let me say, "Efharisto."

That's Greek for "thank you."