Family sets out to translate father's Italian war diary

CHICAGO HEIGHTS -- Two South suburban siblings have translated and sifted through their father's World War I diary, piecing together a picture of the Italian immigrant and veteran.

Recently, the 90-page tattered journal, which was written in Italian, was translated.

That gave 70-year-old Lee Malizia new details about her late father Settimio Damiani.

Damiani served in the Italian Army during the first world war. His diary recounts harrowing experiences such as an October 1917 entry which describes incoming fire and the screams of the wounded.

Translating the diary wasn't easy.

Malizia says her family located Italian scholar Alessandro Gaultieri of Milan online to do the job. He plans on publishing the memoirs into a book.

After the war, Damiani worked in a Chicago Heights glass factory for nearly three decades.

He died in 1979.