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It is with deep sadness that we remember Gene Kleindl, a World War II combat medic withthe 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division — one of the young men who landed inNormandy and marched through the heart of Europe to end tyranny.Gene’s war began on the beaches of France, where chaos, courage, and compassion met inthe same moment. Medics like him ran toward danger, not away from it — unarmed, carryingonly bandages and morphine. Under fire, they pulled the wounded from open fields, turnedhelmets into water basins, and did what they could to hold back death for one more minute.He served through Normandy and the campaigns that followed, patching soldiers’ woundsthrough hedgerows, rain, and rubble until the war’s end. Those who knew him say he neverspoke of himself as a hero. Like so many of his generation, he carried his memories quietly —not to forget, but to protect others from the weight of remembering.In 2023, Gene honored one of those memories — Ralph E. Gaddis, his comrade killed inNormandy on June 12, 1944. He visited Ralph’s grave, standing in silence among the whitecrosses of the fallen, paying tribute to a friend who never came home.Now, Gene has joined him.Their reunion is one of peace — two brothers-in-arms, separated by decades but bound foreverby the promise they made on those fields long ago: to never leave each other behind.As we say goodbye, we remember not only a veteran, but a healer — a man who gave comfortwhere there was only chaos, and who carried the legacy of that compassion for the rest of hislife.May Gene Kleindl rest beside the comrades he once saved.And may we never forget the generation that gave us the world we live in today.