Friends, family remember the art of Ghost Army hero’s life

Artist. Lifelong learner. Trickster. World War II hero. Throughout Bernie Bluestein’s 102-year journey through life, art and life were entwined.

Bluestein, a former Hoffman Estates and Wheeling resident who died in March, was laid to rest in a private burial in Ohio. But on Sunday, family and friends gathered to celebrate all facets of his life at Chicago Jewish Funerals in Buffalo Grove.

During World War II, Bluestein joined the 603rd Camouflage Engineers, a unit that came to be known as the Ghost Army. Its weapons were inflatable tanks, sound effects and other deceptive practices aimed at misleading German forces.

Bluestein, a student at the Cleveland Institute of Art prior to his service, fit right in.

The deception, however, continued long beyond that service — Bluestein kept his heroism a secret, even to his family.

“Growing up, we knew you were in the Army, but didn't talk about it,” his son, Keith Bluestein, said during Sunday’s gathering, as a picture of father in his characteristic white cap and plaid jacket stood on prominent display nearby.

Keith said he learned of his father’s role only after a call from Ghost Army historian Rick Beyer more than 60 years after the war ended.

“I was shocked when he told me you worked in the Ghost Army. All I could say was, 'Wow,' and the rest was history,” he said.

Once the secret was unlocked, the honors followed. Two years ago, Bluestein traveled to the U.S. Capitol to receive the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to members of the Ghost Army.

“Like many veterans who served in the war, Bernie shut his experiences, his wartime experiences off,” Beyer said during the service Sunday. “He put them in a little closet in his mind and didn't revisit it too much over the years.”

Following the war, Bluestein continued to evolve as an artist, first as an industrial designer. After retirement, he focused on sculpting, honing his craft during about 40 years of study at Harper College in Palatine. The college eventually named its sculpture studio after him and awarded him an honorary degree.

His daughter, Aleyce Lacy, described her father as a man with a strong sense of humor who enjoyed magic tricks, card tricks, costumes and jokes — he kept written lists of his favorite ones, she said.

She recalled their games of Scrabble and his love of crossword puzzles.

“Dad never gave up. It always took him a long time to get that last word. He had to get that last word in,” she said.

His son remembered his father as a handy man who built a separate bedroom in the basement of Keith’s home for his stepson. That enabled Keith’s newborn daughter to have a room of her own.

Beyer said Bluestein's death leaves one other living Ghost Army veteran, Bill Nall, 102, who lives in Florida. “The cast of this tale has shuffled off the stage,” Beyer said, “and soon they will shut the lights, close the doors.”

But he said we owe it to ourselves to remember the history of the Ghost Army, which used their wits and guile to save lives and win the war.

Bluestein will continue to be honored after his death and in perpetuity, when the Palatine post office is named in his honor.