This is a story of endurance, toughness and survival despite shattered dreams and a broken body. It is a story of cold-hearted, bureaucratic deceit by the military, which promised a college education to 18-year-olds and instead sent them to the front lines. And, it is a story of catastrophic injury, the struggle to heal and regain some kind of reasonable life. The manuscript that tells this remarkable story was hidden away in a box, unread for over 50 years until recovered in 2015.

We believe Joe Silver wrote of his ordeal and that of his fellow wounded Veterans with the hope that this would inspire both improved medical care for wounded soldiers and further spinal cord injury research.

Joseph J. Silver was born October 3, 1925, in Tannersville, NY, a small town north of New York City near the Catskill Mountains. He was the son of hard-working immigrants and the youngest of four children. At some point in his youth, his family moved back to New York City.

When the United States entered World War II, Joe was 16 and in high school. In 1943, at the age of 18, he was accepted into the Army’s Specialized Training Program (ASTP) at Cornell University. He and his family thought this program would help him achieve the American Dream. The Army would pay for each young enrollee to earn a professional degree (engineering in Joe’s case) and to later begin active duty as a 2nd Lieutenant. For a bright young man whose parents could not afford the cost of a college education, this was a dream come true. Much to the consternation of Joe and his family, the Army abruptly terminated this program in late 1944 and all of the “college boys” were called to active service as Privates.

Joe arrived in England on October 22, 1944, and was sent to Germany. Four months later, on February 28, 1945, he was seriously wounded by German shelling, suffering a severed spinal cord and serious chest wounds. After several military hospital transfers in Europe, the medical team in Europe sent him home to see his family before he died. He was nineteen years old. But, perhaps because of his youth and strength (he was a handsome man and over 6 feet tall), he willed himself to survive. Ironically, the war in Europe ended 3 months later in May 1945.

Confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life he endured multiple surgeries, misdiagnoses, poor care and life-threatening illnesses. Undaunted he continued to fight for the rights of wounded Veterans, particularly those with spinal cord injuries. After more than 20 years on the spinal cord injury wards of multiple VA hospitals, Joe died from complications of his war wounds at the age of 41 while a resident of the West Roxbury, MA VA hospital.

Joe probably began writing his story in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. He completed the manuscript in 1966, but it was never published. For Joe and his comrades, we, his nieces and nephews, have published his manuscript in his memory to bring to others the story of what it was like for Joe and his comrades who suffered debilitating injuries, serving our nation. By telling Joe’s story, we hope to fulfill his wish to improve medical care and stimulate further research to improve the plight of those living with spinal cord injury. Sadly, some 50 years after his death we still have no medical breakthrough to regenerate spinal cord tissue.

Barbara Anscher
Mitchell Anscher
Susan Silver Price
Robert Silver
Richard Trohman