'I love him like a brother': Friends in Brewster bond over shared military service

BREWSTER — When they met, Gary Altieri and Jerry Fiore felt an instant camaraderie.

“I love him like a brother,” Altieri said.

“All of a sudden we had eye contact and that was it,” Fiore said.

“We were right out in front of the building where I was smoking,” Altieri recalled. “He was out with his walker. From that moment on it’s been heaven ever since.”

The two veterans who use wheelchairs met at the Serenity senior apartments for 55 and over on Route 124. The 132-unit complex officially opened in August but people had started moving in much earlier. The building was formerly the Wingate Nursing Home until it was sold to the Elevation Financial Group in 2020.

Neighbors bond over shared service

The veterans bonded over their shared military past. Altieri served in the Coast Guard from 1970-74 while Fiore was a Navy Seal in Vietnam from 1965-68.

“Gary and I, I don’t think you could get any tighter. Any vet in my book is a buddy,” Fiore said. “You didn’t make too many friends (in Vietnam) because you were afraid if you made a friend he might die tomorrow.”

Fiore saw serious combat in Vietnam while Altieri was stationed stateside, but they were both on ships serving America.

“I did two tours in Vietnam. I was in the Tet offensive. It was bloody and sad,” Fiore said.

The Tet offensive by North Vietnam was a mass assault on more than 100 cities and military bases in the south. While it marked a military defeat for North Vietnam, it was considered a strategic victory in that it turned the American public against the war and undercut the narrative that the U.S. was on a steady path to victory.

Jerry Fiore returns with PTSD

Fiore was shot twice, once in each shoulder, bayoneted once, captured by the North Vietnamese and still suffers from parasites picked up in the rice paddies.

“I was captured for close to eight months,” the 78-year-old recalled. “I had my teeth knocked out. I lost a lot of good friends.”

He was hung up and tortured by his captors. Fiore said he survived thanks to his Seal Team 3 training.

“It was tough. I was an early Navy Seal. In training they gave you a gold bell hanging up. You rang that bell if you wanted out. They put you in a boat and carried you off without a compass and you had to make it back to land. They put us in fives from beginning to end. And those five brothers, you watched each other’s back forever,” Fiore said. “All that training is to keep you alive and it did it for me. I hated training but training is what kept me alive. My training in the Navy Seals was the greatest thing I ever did in my life.”

All that trauma overseas took a toll. Fiore suffered from PTSD upon his return.

“When I got out, I went back to school. I had a long period of drug and alcohol abuse. About seven years. Then I got my stuff together. I went into (rehab treatment) Marathon House and stayed there a year and got my life back,” Fiore said. “I became a social worker for the state. I worked with teenage kids in New Bedford. I loved that. I worked steady until I retired seven years ago. ”

Fiore is married. His wife, Terry, worked at the Stop & Shop pharmacy in Orleans for 27 years. They lived in Mashpee before moving into Serenity a year ago. He did lose one friend with the move so it’s fortunate he found a new one.

“I had a military dog, a chocolate Lab but I had to give him up,” Fiore said. “He’s now a state police dog in Vermont. He’s a master sergeant.”

That means he outranked his owner.

Fiore was from Westerly R.I. Altieri grew up in Brockton.

“My dad grew up with Rocky Marciano,” Altieri recalled. “(Marciano) was a club fighter in Brockton (then). He gave mom and dad tickets for his fights. I danced with Rocky’s sister Alice at a wedding.”

Gary Altieri's service was in the Coast Guard

Altieri was the more voluble of the pair, hopping from topic to topic as he recounted his past and offered observations.

“I was out of school and I was drafted,” Altieri said. “My number came up and I didn’t want to be a grunt so I tried to get into aviation school or on a gunboat. But I didn’t get either. I was stationed on the Sebago, WHEC-42 was the call number.”

The ship was back from duty in Vietnam and based in Pensacola, Florida. The Sebago was near the end, serving the Coast Guard from 1945-72. The HEC in its call number stood for high endurance cutter. By the time it left its wartime service it was serving as a weather ship.

“It would do Delta patrols in the North Atlantic up to Sable Island,” Altieri said. “On echo patrols it would play war games patrolling up and down in a grid keeping our eyes open. I got one commendation later from a senator for saving the lives of five people. They lowered me from a helicopter to get the people off first. We did a lot of that.”

That came a bit later but while in Pensacola he met his first wife who worked as a bartender in the Mezzanine Lounge.

“After they decommissioned the (Sebago) I went to the Santa Rosa rescue station. We checked out safety equipment (on boats) and would write them up. We had a blue light and siren. There were a lot of people out on party boats and we’d find pot and cocaine. And we did lifesaving a lot. A girl jumped off a bridge and we got her out of the water.”

When he left the Coast Guard he made doughnuts for Dunkin Donuts in Yarmouth, a true New England job, and then spent 30 years as a commercial fisherman.

“Every port in a storm,” he reflected. “I worked out of St. John, Newfoundland, Boston Harbor. I was on the Hannah Boden which was a swordfish boat and also a lobster boat. We got barrels and barrels of rotten fish and put out 50 miles of long line. We caught swordfish and Mako sharks.”

The Hannah Boden may ring a bell. It was the sister ship, captained by Linda Greenlaw, of the Andrea Gail. The Andrea Gail was featured in the book and movie “The Perfect Storm" and the Hannah Boden was the last ship to communicate with the Andrea Gail before it sank with all hands onboard.

“I was on it in the 1980s not in 1990 when the perfect storm came in with 100-foot seas,” Altieri said. “It was a rugged life but I loved it. I wasn’t in it for the money. I was in it for the fun. Those were crazy days on the back of my Harley. I’m going to get another someday. I’m only 70.”

For now he has his motorized wheelchair. He and Fiore met us in the parking lot and freely zipped around. The day was pleasant and warm, fine for enjoying the fall with a friend.

Snail mail: Message in bottle tossed from the vessel Hannah Boden by Harwich man, found in France 27 years later

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: 'Like a brother': Cape Cod friends bond over military service