The Marine Carp Boys
Remembering John Cappelli (1927 - 2009). Aldo and John met each other in 1946 during an ocean crossing: two Americans who lived their adolescence and young adulthood in Italy during the war. Both faced it with courage, one in Tuscany and the other in Abruzzo. On the Marine Carp they talked about the future. One wanted to be a poet, the other dreamed of art. Once in the U.S., destiny separated their roads, and then reunited them again after 60 years. They discovered they had kept the same values; they were still fighters in life.
The following words are from the internationally-renowned artist Aldo Tambellini, who emailed them to us shortly after he learned of John’s death.
Nives Cappelli lovingly calls them The Marine Carp Boys, referring to the two teenagers who met on the Red Cross ship leaving war torn Italy in 1946 with its cargo of US Citizens, taking them back to the USA. Both Gianni Vanni Cappelli and Aldo Tambellini were teenagers sharing a similar history. Both were born in the USA; but, because of life’s circumstances, they grew up in Italy and both became part of the human collateral damage of WWII returning to the USA, returning to rejoin their fathers, returning to their country of birth where they felt like strangers and whose language they did not speak.
Today, Nives’, trembling voice informed Aldo that his friend from the Marine Carp had died a few hours earlier. The two Marine Carp Boys have parted ways once more
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