You don’t meet a friendlier guy than Mario Iezzoni. The 91-year-old Summit Hill resident always has a smile, is full on conversation and willing to help anybody, anytime.

Until about two years ago, he would, with a snowblower, not only clear his own sidewalks but cut a block-long path for his neighbors. He’s an avid gardener and shares his bounty with friends and relatives.

Life hasn’t always been so happy for Iezzoni. As was a young boy, he grew up in Nazi-occupied Italy. When he came to the United States, he enlisted in the Army at age 17 and was sent to Korea, where he witnessed vast death and destruction.

While in Korea, he rescued a fellow wounded soldier who was left behind, defying enemy machine-gun fire during which bullets perilously flew between his legs. His bravery earned him a Bronze Star for valor.

“The sounds of the zinging bullets are still with me today,” Iezzoni said.

After his military time ended, he went back to school, got a diploma, and then attended what is now Lincoln Technical School in Allentown, where he took a radio and television technical course.

At that time, he met his wife, the former Patricia “Billie” Dougherty, who was a nurse assistant at an Allentown Hospital.

A large family was brewing, so he reenlisted in the Army since employment locally was scarce. In the Army, he began working with TV, which was still in its infancy. He was instrumental in helping implement closed circuitry with the rocket program in the space race, make videos on training on the battlefield, and using TV in medicine and disease control. This had him globe-trotting, working in the Huntsville, Alabama, rocket center, Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., Fort Dietrick in Maryland which was a center of the U.S. Biological Weapons Program, and the battlefields of Vietnam.

Still in relatively good health, Iezzoni today enjoys his gardening and traveling to casinos. He and Billie also are kept busy with their large family of eight children, 20 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren (with two more great-grandchildren on the way).

War in his native Italy

Iezzoni was the son of Tony “Tony the Tailor” Iezzoni, who had a shop on Center Street in Lansford. Everybody knew Tony as Gabrielle.

Tony met his wife, who lived in a small town called Tocco de Casauria, a farming village. He wasn’t allowed to marry his love until he could prove he could support her. Tony came to the United States, worked in a steel mill, saved his money, went back to Italy and bought a farm, and won the approval of her mother.

Mario went to school in Italy until third grade, when the school was converted by the occupiers into a German Hospital.

During the war, the family had to house a major from the German army.

When the Germans smoked and tossed the butts onto the ground, the boy would pick them up, douse the burning end, and pack the tobacco in a container to sell it for extra money.

From his home, Mario could hear the cannons firing close by. Sometimes the Germans took cows from the farm owners. For example, if a farmer had four cows, they would take two. After using those two for meat, they would come back and take one more.

American planes staged bombing raids on a mountain path just outside the village. As soon as the bombing subsided, the Germans would repair the roads with any eligible men they could find.

Mario said, “One day the German S.S. came and captured every eligible male 16 and up.” They were to be used for manual labor such as digging ditches. Mario’s brother was one of those rounded up. He lied about his age, saying he was under 16. The Germans checked and upon determining he was old enough, “they beat the hell out of him with a stick,” he said.

He was transported to a worksite, but eventually returned home.

In 1947, Tony brought his family came to the United States and settled in Lansford. Tony worked in the mines and saved enough money to open his tailor shop.

Mario entered the seventh grade in St. Ann’s School, Lansford, despite only going to the third grade in Italy. At St. Ann’s, his courses were algebra, world history, English and French. But the heartbreak ensued. Fifteen months after arriving, Tony’s wife died.

Mario didn’t like school so he dropped out. He and three friends then joined the Army.

Thrust into military action

When Mario entered the Army in 1950, he got his basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he spent 14 weeks on kitchen duty, followed by eight weeks of armored infantry training.

He went to Japan and then Korea.

While in Japan, he was informed by the Red Cross that his brother, Tony, was in Japan. Tony had been drafted even though he was the son of a surviving parent, and even though the late Monsignor Agnello Angelini, a well-respected priest, tried to intervene. The Draft Board declined the appeals. Although Mario planned to visit Tony in Japan in a few days, he was informed that Tony had been wounded. They didn’t get together, and Tony eventually returned to Korean War duty.

Mario laughs about having 200 Chinese soldiers surrender to him. His platoon was digging trenches, and Mario was put in charge of guarding tents.

He got word that 10,000 Chinese soldiers “were coming our way.” But they were starving from lack of food and waving white handkerchiefs. Mario, armed with only a pistol while they carried burp guns, accepted their surrender. Mario processed about 200 prisoners over a two- or three-day period.

Mario had befriended several other soldiers. Among them was John Earley, a 25-year-old who was drafted into the Army. Earley convinced Mario to attend Easter Sunday service with him. The day after the service, Mario turned 18 and was summoned to combat duty.

On the first day of combat, Mario remembers, “The weather was rain, sleet, foggy.”

The soldiers climbed down one mountain, then up another. At about 6:30 a.m., someone lit a fire for warmth. Mario was behind a rock, guarding mortars. He said, “The enemy could see me from wherever they are. They were shooting at me. The sound will stay with me forever.”

The shooting continued for two or three hours but, miraculously, Mario wasn’t hit.

“I was very calm,” he said. “I told the platoon leader, ‘This is what happens in combat. They shoot at you.’ ”

Suddenly, all hell broke loose.

About 20 to 30 men who set up a defense line began running off the hill and screamed that a counterattack was occurring. “They shot shrapnel all over the place,” Mario recalls. Sgt. Ellis Coleman and Pfc. Clark McMinn were hit and killed.

Mario started down a hill. He went about 200 to 300 yards and came to a flat area.

“Just as I got near the opening, machine guns blazed,” he said. There he saw a stretcher with an injured soldier. “He opened his eyes and said, ‘Please don’t leave me here.’ ”

It was Earley. “I said, ‘I won’t leave you Earley. It’s me, Iezzoni.’ ”

Mario and a Korean picked up Earley and carried him for six to eight hours to an aid station, where Mario collapsed from exhaustion.

Mario slept for several hours. When he woke up, he learned that had Earley died.

Initially, Mario caught grief for not returning immediately to his battle detail until he explained what had happened. Instead of getting court-martialed, he was decorated.

Years later, Mario received a letter from a relative of Earley. His family never learned any details about his death. Mario and his family went to Early’s home in Connecticut and told them the details.

Ironically, the day before Earley was killed, his parents had received a letter written by him in Korea. It was the only letter the family had gotten from him.

Space rocket program

After Mario reenlisted in the Army, he was dispatched to Huntsville, Alabama, to install TV hookups involving the space rocket program. One televised experiment involved the amount of fuel inside a rocket during its propulsion.

He worked directly with Werner von Braun, who was brought to the U.S. from Germany and named director of development operations division of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency.

Von Braun had been a member of the Nazi Party and space architect, a leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany and later a pioneer of rocket and space technology in the United States.

Iezzoni was later assigned to Walter Reed Hospital, where he hooked up cable to Fort Dietrick for monitoring disease treatment. The Fort Dietrick facility was top secret and Iezzoni had to be inoculated regularly against potential diseases. His wife, Billie, said one day Iezzoni woke up very ill and confused. A doctor immediately ordered him to a hospital. He was released within 24 hours. “To this day, we don’t know why he was sick,” she said. His medical records were retained at Fort Dietrick.

He was dispatched to Vietnam to help put together training films for soldiers. There were about 800 TV technicians in the Army but he was the only one to make the rank of sergeant major.

He arrived in Saigon by helicopter. There were three choppers that had the nickname “Batman.” At home, Billie was watching the news when CBS visited the “Batman” site and even went into the hangar they called “the Bat Cave.” On national television news, she saw her husband.

A number of years later, Iezzoni attended a Medal of Honor presentation at the White House, where he met President George W. Bush.

Before Iezzoni began his first stint in the Army, his ambition was obvious. He worked at his father’s tailor shop from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., then washed dishes until 2 a.m. at the former My Place Restaurant in Lansford.

Iezzoni said he loved the hot pork sandwiches and vowed that someday, after his military service days, he would become a cook.

Although that aspiration never came to fruition, he has achieved a lot in his lifetime.