Students get lesson on the reality of war WWII vet tells stories from a different era during visit to OBHS BY MARLENE CANTY Staff Writer Bob Bozian speaks to students at Old Bridge High School Friday about his experiences during World War II. OLD BRIDGE - A World War II veteran with no shortage of war stories about the true grit and gore of combat met with Old Bridge High School history students Friday in recognition of Veterans Day. Bob Bozian sat with the high school juniors for over an hour, graphically describing now-famous battles of more than six decades ago, including those at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Midway, Santa Cruz and the Philippines. "Some things you never forget. It stays with you forever," the 85-year-old former Navy gunner told a crowded classroom of 16-year-olds, describing the battles in which young men, only a few years older than these students, were being killed in combat air attacks with the Japanese. "At 2 a.m. the Japanese hit us, the lead destroyer, and we were dead in the water," Bozian recounted. "Everybody on the right side of the gunning machine was dead. Everybody on the left side was alive. I was on the left side," Bozian said, describing a battle in which the sailors were ordered to abandon the sinking ship before the enemy shelled its ammunition supply and blew them out of the water. The Old Bridge students, part of teacher Rocco Celentano's history class, received the visit as a gift from their teacher for their diligent work. On a bulletin board display they helped create for Veterans Day are photographs from 20-plus years ago of some of their own teachers who are veterans of various American wars or conflicts. According to high school junior Kaitlyn Walker, Bozian is a valuable resource because he is "passing down his story to us, and there aren't that many World War II veterans left." Junior Kumar Patel agreed, saying he had derived a whole new perspective about the war, soldiers in general, and their sacrifice. Sixteen-year-old Erin Mugan said Bozian's talk gave her a sense of "the reality of war" and the fact that "you can get killed." During Bozian's gripping talk, he described the 1940s, when he was in his 20s, as "another place and time." He said part of what held the soldiers and the nation together was the charisma and leadership of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his famous "fireside chats" that helped bolster a nation through hard times. Among the valuable advice Bozian imparted to the teens was: Don't ever let anybody put you down for being yourself. "You are what you are," Bozian said, "and your real friends will accept you as you are." He said that one of the things the war taught him was that a true friend was somebody you can trust in the clutch. He also described to the transfixed teens his battle with malaria, which he caught while recuperating from injuries suffered during a battle when his destroyer was sunk. The residual effects of the disease subsequently meant for many years that he could not donate blood, and later destroyed his career goal to join the FBI or the U.S. Treasury Department. Bozian recommended films like "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and "Midway" as the best and most accurate accounts of the war battles he experienced or knew about. Bozian, who after the war taught history for some years in Old Bridge, said he worked in the Old Bridge tax office for the past 17 years, retiring six weeks ago so that he could resurrect his career as a World War II lecturer on the high school circuit. "People don't realize at one point how close that war was," Bozian told the intrigued youths who sat listening in total silence to his stories. He made a little space less than a quarter-inch between his thumb and forefinger. "At one point, we were that close to all speaking Japanese," he said.