Paul Posti may not be a household name but his decorated career as a war hero and then later chef makes him worthy of being so. In 2023, close friend George Mather of Raynham honored the former World War II B-17 Flying Fortress tail gunner by writing and publishing the memoir “Posti: War Hero, Hollywood Insider, Chef to Celebrities, and Redemption.”

Wartime exploits
Before kicking a young, hungry relatively unknown man named Elvis Presley out of his kitchen at the Knickerbocker Hotel, Posti was a soldier who was born in Walpole but grew up in Boston’s North End neighborhood. Posti earned a Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest decoration for heroism, by accomplishing a feat that has not been repeated since. He shot down a German Flocke-Wolfe fighter plane with a Smith and Wesson 38-caliber service revolver in 1942.