Adventurers' Club Publications

THE BORELLI STORY by Frank Haigler, #825

We have all had amazing incidents and coincidences which have occurred to us in our lifetime. While most have faded in time to be forgotten, some have remained in our memories, never to be forgotten and, in some cases perhaps, not believed by others when we have had occasion to recount such events.

During the assault and capture of Okinawa in the Spring of 1945 in WWII, I was a company commander in the 6th Marine Division. Following the war I resigned my commission and continued on with my education, completing medical school at the University of Illinois in 1950 and subsequently serving in the Navy as a medical officer until 1952 when I commenced a fellowship in obstetrics and gynecology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

It was in late January or early February of 1952 when, during one of my "routine gynecology clinic" days in the clinic diagnostic building, that I was assigned a new patient just arrived from Southern California, a Mrs. Lucy Borrelli.

Prior to my examination I inquired of Mrs. Borrelli as to her past medical history and related family as it might have pertained to her current illness. Mrs. Borelli informed me that her family was all living and well with the exception of her oldest son who had been killed in the war.

I expressed sympathy and asked, conversationally, how he had died. She said that he had been a marine corporal and had died near the end of the war on some island.....Okinawa?

This startled me and I asked if her former residence had been in Jersey City, New Jersey. "Yes" she said, "we used to live there but we moved to El Monte, California several months ago."

I asked Mrs. Borrelli if her son wasn't Corporal Sam Borrelli of L Company, 3rd Battalion, 22nd Marine Regiment of the 6th Division.

"Yes" she said. "My boy Sam."

I said "Mrs. Borrelli, your son was killed in action on May 15, 1945 on Okinawa." She asked how I knew that. Then I asked her if she had received a Christmas card from her son's former company commander every year since then to which she replied "Yes, we get a card every year from some former Marine captain."

"Well, Mrs. Borrelli, that person is me. I'm a doctor now, here at Mayo's." Needless to say I was as startled as was Mrs. Borrelli. Here, among over two hundred thousand patients and me, only one of probably 800 physicians, I had encounted the mother of one of my boys I had lost in combat.

I am not certain of that two hundred thousand census for that year but, nevertheless, the chance of my being assigned that patient and then nearly missing the coincidence except for my having asked about the death of her son, is indeed a rare possibility.

I was able, that evening, to visit her in the motel where she was staying. I had my old combat maps to show her the exact location where Sam had been killed, the photos of the division cemetery where he was buried at that time, and photos of his platoon showing him with his buddies. Obviously these were pictures she had never seen.

I know it saddened her but it also answered questions she had always had and it helped to close the book on her fine son. And I could assure her, I could not have asked for a finer Marine.