Joe Sacco, the only son of Italian immigrants, left his Alabama farm and landed at Omaha Beach during the Normandy Invasion in 1944. While serving in the 92nd Signal Battalion and Patton’s famed Third Army, Sacco and his second family found themselves at the forefront of the Allied push through France and Germany.

After more than a year of fighting, but still only 20 years old, he reached the walls of Germany’s Dachau concentration camp. They were among the first 250 American troops into the camp, and it was there, surrounded by death and horror, that they finally grasped the significance of the Allied mission.