Flag flies for William Barbari
In its mission to take history out of the textbooks by honoring local veterans, the Hampton Bays School District paid tribute to William Barbari during an annual fourth grade Veterans Day ceremony on Nov. 10. The students both celebrated Veterans Day and honored Barbari, who is being recognized at the school by having an American flag flown in his honor throughout November.
As part of the ceremony, held at Hampton Bays Elementary School, fourth grade students read Barbari’sbiography, spoke about the importance of Veterans Day and sang patriotic songs. Also in attendance were local officials.
A year after graduating high school, Barbari joined the U.S. Army in 1975 and followed in the footsteps of so many East End soldiers by heading for basic training at Tank Hill in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Barbari’s “fondest” memory of basic training was being caught in a bivouac during a sleet storm that poured water into the tent by the gallons. Being resourceful, he found a way to escape to a latrine, where he spent the rest of the night. Even though he enlisted, he did not select his military occupational specialty (MOS). Following basic training, he was assigned to Advanced Infantry Training with an 11 Bravo MOS.
After infantry training, Barbari was assigned to the Infantry Training Center at Fort Polk and was trained as a specialist in Tubular-launched Optically tracked Wire-guided missiles, known to soldiers as the TOW. As a TOW specialist, he was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment (Mechanized) in Boeblingen, Germany, living in a World War II German Panzer base. Since the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was over, he spent his time in Germany training and rebuilding the U.S. Army presence in NATO while tearing up German roads with the regiment’s mechanized tracked vehicles. Frigid weather, droughts, dust storms and being in the field for months at a time became the norm from March 1976 to August 1977.
This time included a five-week operation tracking Russian and Czechoslovakian troops along the Czech border. He was involved in two major military alerts in response to Warsaw Pact activity on the border. The army was in such disarray that they faced the Communists in their TOWs without ammunition for their weapons. During these excursions, Barbari was the senior TOW specialist in the elite scouting platoon, meaning he was the “first man in and last man out.”
In 1977, Barbari returned to the U.S., left the Army and worked in the environmental systems industry on Long Island. He enrolled in Southampton College in 1978 and graduated four years later with a degree in professional writing and engineering. With his degree, Barbari was back with the Army again, this time as a contractor for the U.S. Army Infantry School writing correspondence courses. Eventually, he worked in New York City at a data processing company as a technical writer for internal systems. In addition to technical writing, Barbari published poetry for a literary magazine.
Barbari was awarded a medal for completing the New York City Marathon in 1991. He retired in 1996 and currently enjoys life in Hampton Bays with his wife, Patricia, of 39 years. They have one son.
Barbari is a greatly appreciated member of the American Legion Post 924 in Hampton Bays and enjoys painting and art.