Book Talk: Citizen Soldier: A Story of War, Friendship and Remembrance

Please join the Milford Historical Commission and the Friends of the Milford Town Library at a special reading and signing with Paula Bruggeman and Karen Gulledge on Saturday, May 2, 2026 at 2:00p.m. at Memorial Hall! 

John Villani, and his best friend from high school, Lou Gentile—two eighteen-year-old boys from Milford were inducted together into the US Army as privates in 1944 and engaged in ground combat as infantry riflemen in the European theater of operations in World War II. John wrote a memoir at the age of 74 recollecting their military service with the US 100th Infantry Division as it successfully prevailed in key final battle engagements in France and Germany. John and Lou witnessed the day of Allied victory over the German Third Reich in May 1945. John's daughters, Paula and Karen, posthumously published this memoir, Citizen Soldier: A Story of War, Friendship and Remembrance in 2025, marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory.

Copies of Citizen Soldier: A Story of War, Friendship and Remembrance will be available for purchase at the event.  Copies may also be purchased online at Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore in Washington, D.C. Copies are also available at the Milford Town Library to borrow. Call 508-473-2145 ext 2 for more information.