WWII POW from Naperville told school children his war stories

Having fought through North Africa, Sicily and Italy during World War II, Arnie Massier came home to Naperville, but he never forgot the moment a German soldier got the drop on him.

"All of a sudden, I got kicked in the leg," he recalled 63 years after he became a GI. "And I turned around, and they had the zip pistol. ... He had it right by my head. And he said, 'For you, the war is over' in English."

When he returned to his hometown of Naperville after 18 months as a prisoner of war, he lived out his life in the house on Franklin Avenue where he was born in 1922 - and where he always flew the POW-MIA flag. Massier, 97, died Feb. 14,

Until the 1990s, Massier wouldn't talk about the war. But then Jennifer Reichert invited her neighbor to share his stories with her sixth-grade classmates at Washington Junior High School.

"He was supposed to be there for 10 minutes," she said. "He spoke and spoke."

Massier became a popular speaker at Naperville schools, and he was honored in parades and at Wrigley Field.

With his death, "We really lost a page of history," said Army veteran Ken Garhan, 86, a former VFW Post 3873 commander.

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