Veterans Day: Call to duty bridges languages for Auburn man

Published 5:56 pm Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Trained originally to fight with a bomber squadron in the war in the Pacific, Army Air Force sergeant Matt Fioretti found his Italian heritage pointing him to a different flight path in his life — service as a valuable interpreter in Europe.

“I didn’t want to go and feed the sharks,” Fioretti said with a wry grin, glancing at the sun-splashed backyard garden of his Auburn home. “I said at the time, ‘This is right down my alley.’ “

Fioretti, sharp and spry at 90, considers himself lucky to have avoided the air battles and bombing raids of the Pacific theater during World War II. He was destined to go, assigned to accompany his outfit – the 471st Squadron, 334th Bombardment Group – as a top-turret gunner on a B-25 Mitchell in 1942.

But the squadron left without him. Special orders shipped an unsuspecting Fioretti elsewhere – back to his native Italy, where the war effort needed interpreters for military spy cases involving American personnel in liberated Rome.

Fioretti, born and raised in Italy until he joined his father in the United States at age 13, was more than qualified for the job.

What he didn’t expect was the intense role he would play during grueling trials for the prosecution and military tribunal.

“The life of someone depended on how well I interpreted,” Fioretti recalled. “How I interpreted saved a life. Many times I had to make sure of what was said. I had to ask them to repeat what was said. Much was repeated again and again.”

It was by no means a smooth transition. Even Italy’s English-speaking prosecutor had trouble with the American dialogue.

Fioretti survived the challenging task and his three-year assignment in Rome. He held other duties as an interpreter.

Fioretti says he feels blessed to have survived the war years.

“I was lucky,” he said. “I have seen what war can do.”

Before war broke out in Europe, the Fioretti family was physically divided. His mother and sister were unable to follow when Matt and his father left Italy for the United States in 1933 so his father could work for the Northern Pacific Railway in Lester, a small town near Stampede Pass.

While assigned to Italy during the war, Fioretti checked on his mother and sister in their hometown of Carbonara, not far from Rome.

After the war, Fioretti followed in his father’s footsteps to work on the railroad, beginning as a laborer and ending as a track supervisor in charge of maintaining the route that still exists today between Auburn and Cle Elum.

He routinely showed up an hour early for work, and one morning it paid off. Noticing a weakened track, he signaled ahead and prevented a potential tragic derailment of a high-speed express train carrying its share of passengers.

Fioretti retired after 36 years with the railroads. During that time, he married and provided for a family in Auburn. Married to Antonetta for 64 years, the couple raised five children. Today they have 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

“He’s always had a good sense of humor,” Antonetta said. “He’s a people person, and he’s been a very hard worker, a good family man.”

An avid fisherman and hunter in his prime, Fioretti now enjoys travel and spending time with family.

He recently survived a bout with pneumonia, and still gets around with the help of Antonetta and friends.

“I’ve had a very good life,” he said. “God gave me so much. I owe it to God.”

Fioretti also was proud to serve

“It was my duty to God,” he said, “and to country.”