It was more than 40 years ago that Luis A. Serrano, a World War II veteran with service from 1942 to 1946, told his youngest daughter he wanted a military funeral and burial when he died.
"He would say, 'I know you're going to do it for me, right?' He would tell me things to do he wouldn't tell anyone else. I was the one close to him," said Yvonne Gonzalez, a resident of Queens, N.Y.
Although he spent just a little more than three years as a military policeman, the then-private first class received a Purple Heart for wounds received in Okinawa when a grenade blew up leaving shrapnel in his body for the rest of his life and killing other Soldiers in his platoon, Gonzalez said.
"He tried to save some of his buddies. Some of them didn't make it because he got hurt. He told us that his platoon got killed, most of the guys," Gonzalez said.
Grenade shrapnel lodged in his neck and leg and prevented him from having certain medical tests like magnetic resonance imaging or MRIs and after many years, the shrapnel traveled to other places in his body, Gonzalez said.
His military service had a lasting impression on him, and he carried many of the values and standards the Army taught him into his parenting.
"If you get up at four, it was a four. Dinner was at six, and if you came late, you couldn't eat with us because you came in late. You had to wait. In the service, everything was time. He wanted us to learn the responsibility of life like the service. He felt that we should know (the discipline). He brought home the military with him," Gonzalez said.
Serrano met the love of his life first on the boat from Puerto Rico to New York. He helped the woman with her children and told her she was gorgeous and she said she was a married woman. Years later he saw her again when he was out with other Soldiers. They talked and danced, but again they went their separate ways.
"(One day) my father was coming up the steps of the building and (my mother) was going down the steps," Gonzalez said. They talked and learned he was living on the second floor and she on the third floor of the same building. "Then my mother was divorced. They started dating and one thing led to another."
The couple raised a total of nine children together leading to 27 grandchildren, 37 great-grandchildren and four more on the way.
Although he and his wife later split up, the couple remained friends.
"He always said, 'I will always love your mother. I will die and I will take her in my heart,'" Gonzalez said.
Serrano lived into his late 80s before being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. In 2009, doctors found cancer but said Alzheimer's would be his terminal illness.
At age 90, Serrano was moved to hospice care to live out his final days. Gonzalez had to begin making funeral arrangements, and she checked on a military uniform to bury him in. She learned it would cost $297 for just the uniform and told her brother how expensive it would be.
Her brother's daughter is married to Army Staff Sgt. Jason Olivencia and is the person who put the funeral home in contact with Fort Hamilton.
Fort Hamilton heard about the situation and several activities came together to get the appropriate uniform at no charge. The Thrift Shop furnished the parts of the uniform, and Louie's Dry Cleaning and Alterations provided more of the uniform. The Post Exchange expedited shipping of his medals, including his Purple Heart. Ariadna's Fantasy in the mini-mall provided the engraved nameplate. Serrano had been awarded New York's Conspicuous Service Medal, so the New York Adjutant General's Command Sergeant Major shipped the medal to Fort Hamilton to round out the rack.
As the uniform was coming together, Gonzalez stayed by her father's side. The health care providers told her that he could go at any time and even advised her to leave his side because they felt he was hanging on so he wouldn't be leaving her.
Gonzalez left hospice for a short while on Feb. 12 and her father passed peacefully in the early morning hours.
"No matter how bad he was, for some reason he always remembered me. He was strong; he was a fighter all the way," Gonzalez said.
In the days between his death and his visitation, representatives from Fort Hamilton received a ruptured duck lapel pin--a signature eagle medallion all service members from WWII were given. At the visitation, representatives from Fort Hamilton brought the pin.
"They brought me the last pin that I needed and that meant so much," Gonzalez said.
"He (Serrano) was proud of his medals, his uniforms, the Army. He would get upset when people would say, 'Do you understand English?' He would say, 'Of course, I was born in Puerto Rico, I joined the service and I got a Purple Heart.' No matter how old he was, he was always proud that he served the United States. He deserved getting his uniform and his medals and I thank so much (Fort Hamilton)," Gonzalez said.
Her father was so proud of his Purple Heart and military service that if he saw a photo of a Purple Heart or other symbols of the military in a magazine or newspaper, he would cut it out and carry it in his wallet, Gonzalez said.
As Gonzalez began the painful task of sorting through his belongings, she came across a suit with a small Purple Heart lapel pin on it. Serrano is buried at the Calverton National Cemetery.
"And on his headstone, they're going to put the Purple Heart," Gonzalez said.
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