Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
Airborne-qualified as a paratrooper, Joseph Insolia served stateside during the Vietnam War as a supply clerk and company armorer while doing haircuts on the side.
One of six children, Joseph Insolia was born in Solarino, Sicily, to Paul and Nina (Teodoro) Insolia. He grew up in the small town with his maternal grandparents living in the same house and aunts, uncles and cousins close by.
Insolia’s father was the local barber. Once a week, he brought a meat bone home and his mother made a batch of sauce on the wood-burning stove. “My favorite food in those days was pasta and broccoli and I used to love pasta e fagioli,” he says.
Insolia attended the local elementary and middle schools in the neighboring town of Floridia, then went on to Liceo Scientifico in Siracusa, where he completed two-and-a-half years of the five-year school. “I was only there until Christmas vacation because then we came to the United States,” he says.
His uncle had left Sicily years before, settled in Chicago with his family, and he had urged his brother to join them. In January 1961, Insolia, along with a brother and sister and his parents, emigrated to the United States on the Leonardo da Vinci. “I was very excited but I was very sad because I left my grandparents and they were kind of sad,” he remembers.
Insolia turned 17 while onboard the ship. The family stayed with his uncle in the Fullerton/Austin neighborhood and Insolia and his younger brother, 17 and 14, were both placed in seventh grade at Burbank School. “We didn’t speak English,” Insolia says. A primary grade student translated. “He was Calabrese so he could understand Sicilian a little bit,” he says.
Insolia quit school after one month and worked in construction. “I had to work, of course,” Insolia says. Combining his salary and his father’s barber salary, the family moved across the street from his uncle. “There were a lot of paesans in the neighborhood,” Insolia says. “It made it a little easier for my mother and my dad, but it was hard.”
Insolia left construction to work for Salerno Bakery while attending barber school. Uncertain about his future, Insolia enlisted in the Army in 1963. He was all set to leave when he was told he couldn’t go. He didn’t pass the tests because he didn’t speak and read English very well. “That was the break I needed,” Insolia says. “I finished barber school and got my license within six months.”
He was employed as a barber when he received his draft notice. “I thought, they’re not going to take me,” Insolia recalls. This time he passed the tests and on June 7, 1965, boarded a train to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. His parents were worried; they now had one son in the Marines and one in the Army. “They were not very happy,” Insolia says. After basic training, he attended supply school on base and then quartermaster school at Fort Lee, Virginia.
Over a couple of beers, Insolia and two buddies dared one another to go to Jump School and off they went to Fort Benning, Georgia. The three-week class included one week of marching followed by learning how to jump and finally jumping. The movie “The Green Berets” was filming while Insolia’s unit was marching on the grounds. “I guess we were part of that movie, not sure,” he says. Although he was scared at first, he really enjoyed jumping. “The thing that I remember the most on our first jump, we all were looking straight ahead; nobody was saying a word. I think we were all saying our prayers,” Insolia says. “I closed my eyes when I jumped out and then I looked up, saw the parachute and I said, ‘Oh, man, thank God.’”
Insolia got his wings, hoping to go to Vietnam where his brother, Giovanni, was fighting. Instead, he was assigned to the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as a supply clerk. “When somebody came to the company, I had to give them whatever they needed, like sheets and blankets, etc.,” he explains. He issued field uniforms, sleeping bags, helmets, whatever the soldiers needed for field training. When a soldier left the company, he returned everything to Insolia, who was responsible for stocking and maintaining inventory and keeping all the supplies organized. “I used to do a lot of paperwork,” he says.
Insolia earned extra money by cutting hair but gave his Sergeant free haircuts. Civilian barbers worked in The Exchange, PX, on base but many soldiers preferred to come to Insolia. “I used to charge them 50 cents,” he says. “It was gas money for my car.”
He attended armorer school and then had two jobs, supply clerk and company armorer. Insolia monitored the use and maintenance of all weapons, including pistols, machine guns and bazookas. He issued weapons to soldiers for use on the shooting range and it was their responsibility to clean the weapon before returning it to Insolia. Sometimes he gave the soldiers haircuts while they cleaned their rifles. Insolia inventoried and kept all weapons in working order and ready to go. “If one failed, we had to send it to maintenance and we needed paperwork for everything,” he says. “If you didn’t do the paperwork, believe me you got in trouble.”
Insolia worked daily in the supply room. At times, he drove a truck off base to pick up supplies or to drop off and pick up parachutes at Pope Air Force Base. Evenings and weekends were free except when he pulled base guard duty or charge of quarters duty, guarding the barracks. Every Friday, Insolia and an Italian buddy went to an Italian restaurant in town. “We used to go there for ravioli all the time,” he says. “The Italian lady who owned it spoke Sicilian and she loved me because I was speaking Sicilian to her.”
The Six-Day War broke out while Insolia was in separation, one week before his discharge, and all processing stopped. “They said, ‘No more leaves, no more discharges,’” Insolia says. “We were in limbo for six days.”
Insolia was discharged on June 6, 1967, as Specialist Fourth Class. Returning home, he worked as a barber for a few years before opening his own shop, where his father joined him. Insolia is the owner-operator of Penthouse Hairstyling in Chicago. He and his wife, Maureen (Deany), have three daughters and four grandchildren.
Reflecting on his time in the Army, Insolia says, “It was a very good experience for me. I was very lucky because unfortunately a lot of the kids that I knew and guys I was with got shipped to Vietnam and a lot of them didn’t come back.”
The above appears in the September 2024 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.
