Sidney Gantman
Sid Gantman was glad to talk about his life, not for his military service, but because of the time after the war. “During the war all you did was plow along, carry ammunition, shoot the ammunition,” he said. He’s spent the time since the war keeping out of trouble.
His parents emigrated from Russia and eventually made their way to Massachusetts: he was born in Russia, his brother in Argentina, and his sister in Boston. Drafted into the army directly before his senior year in college, Gantman’s mechanical engineering studies included aeronautics. A biplane flight received while hanging around the hangers of the East Boston airport at the age of eight or nine helped spur his interest in aviation.
“I thought I’d be destined for the air corps,” Gantman said. Placed in the infantry instead, he finally transferred and – qualified equally for bombadier, navigator, and pilot – he chose to be a pilot. Within months, he and other excess pilots were transferred to infantry. So he put in an application for airborne – paratroopers – and was accepted, but the next day his division was alerted for overseas. “That killed that one,” he said. Later, in combat in the Vosges mountains, he applied for airborne training at Saint Cyr. “That afternoon I get hit with shrapnel,” Gantman said. (He did go through paratrooper training long after the war, at the age of 45. “I hurt for six months afterward,” he said.)
As a new officer in charge of payroll, Gantman noticed a soldier who had difficulty signing his name. He talked the defensive private into additional schooling. “One of my proudest possessions is a letter from him to me,” Gantman said of the soldier’s thanks-filled letter. “I did get a bronze star medal, I did get a purple heart, but that to me meant a hell of a lot more.”
Gantman began giving blood through the Jewish War Veterans decades ago. “I gave over 85 gallons,” he said. He was a test case in plasma and platelet apheresis, in which the red blood cells are returned to the donor while patients receive the plasma and platelets, which the donor can replenish within a couple days. “As a result I gave every week,” he said. “It kept me out of trouble.”
He also helped raise funds to treat cystic fibrosis. “Up until three years ago I used to climb the Prudential; that’s fifty flights,” Gantman said, and he worked to boost the fundraiser. “After I climbed the stairs I used to go around taking pictures of poor kids struggling to make the flights, of kids enjoying the party that took place afterward.”
He remains active in veterans’ organizations. “It takes up a lot of my time and it’s good. Keeps me out of trouble,” he said. He was one of the first to make a video for the Veterans’ Oral History Project. Gantman also attends an early morning minyan most days of the week.
"I’m tickled silly that I was able to do what I did. I’m 82, and I feel that I still have a long way to go. At least a week,” he said, laughing. He’s going to offer to be a “guinea pig” for donating blood again later this week. Anything to keep himself out of trouble.