Born on September 5, 1924, Frank Stellar grew up in Lebanon, Pennsylvania – in a family of ten children with eight sisters.  Both of Frank’s parents were immigrants from Austria Hungary who came to the U.S. in search of better opportunities.  Frank left school after Grade 11 and worked so he could help out the family; he was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps in April 1943. After basic training in Greensboro, North Carolina, he began training to be a cook.  A trip across the Atlantic followed, and Frank found himself first in Glasgow, Scotland, and then on a train to England. Frank’s unit got to France after D-Day and had to wait for the infantry to go through and clear the area. They then set up an airstrip in a farmer’s field so the P-47 fighter planes could be closer to the front. As the fall of 1944 turned to winter, news broke about the German offensive that came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge.  Despite his original training as a cook, the army decided at that time that more infantrymen were needed, so Frank was sent back to England for infantry training.  He wound up attached to the Sixth Army’s 36th Division, known as the “Texas Army,” whose mission at that point in the war was to support the Allied air campaign.  The war came to an end as Frank’s new division was being dispatched to the front, so he never had to put his combat training to the test.  Frank went on to serve in the Army of Occupation in Germany for about 4-5 months.  PFC Frank Stellar was honorably discharged in February 1946. He returned home and worked at the Cornwall ore mines for 27 years, and then he worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation until his retirement.  Along the way, Frank married Susan Jane Stewart in 1948; they raised three sons who gave them five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Age hasn’t prevented Frank from staying active. He’s belonged to the Lebanon YMCA for more than five decades, where he still works out – enough so that he was able to do a pull up on a recent veterans’ trip to Europe!  Frank Stellar was interviewed by Scott Masters at his home in Lebanon, Pennsylvania in July 2025.